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The number of citations a peer-reviewed article receives is often used as a measure of its importance and scientific impact. This paper identifies, describes and categorizes the highly cited papers in addiction research on cannabis, heroin, cocaine and psychostimulants. Highly cited papers were identified in the Web of Science Core Collection database. Several bibliometric indicators were calculated. Social network analysis was applied to draw groups of authors and institutions with the greatest number of collaborations and co-words. The number of citations for the top 100 cited articles ranged from 649 to 4,672. The articles were published in 40 journals. The subject category Substance Abuse included 10 papers. The United States was the most productive country (79 papers), followed by the United Kingdom (9). The main funding institutions were the National Institutes of Health in the United States. The network of collaboration between authors distributes the 352 researchers into 53 groups. The three most cited works address the neural basis of drug craving as an incentive-sensitization theory of addiction, the clinical and research uses of the Addiction Severity Index, and the neurocircuitry of addiction. Scientific literature on addictions is widely dispersed both in multidisciplinary and specific journals of neurology, psychiatry and addictions, with relatively few publications providing most of the citations. An ongoing challenge for this field is the concentration of highly cited papers coming from a select number of countries, with the United States being the research hub of the world, with the highest volume of publications and total citations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]