Summary Digitalisation has significantly changed, and continues to change, how humans interact with themselves and each other. This includes how people find and identify information; communicate and socialise; engage with healthcare delivery and buy and sell products, goods and services. These changes bring about both significant challenges but also opportunities in the field of substance use and substance use disorders (SUDs) and are rapidly evolving as technology and human interaction with technology evolves. These challenges are also impacted by wider evolving trends in how society responds to drug use as well as current, significant and evolving socio-political challenges including those associated with climate change and mass migration which are likely to have ever increasing global impacts. In this context, this workshop considers how to backcast a future where digital tools are used optimally in the field of substance use and substance use disorders, globally, by 2030.