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What drug policies cost. Estimating government drug policy expenditures
Author(s) -
Reuter Peter
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
addiction
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.424
H-Index - 193
eISSN - 1360-0443
pISSN - 0965-2140
DOI - 10.1111/j.1360-0443.2005.01336.x
Subject(s) - euros , per capita , enforcement , public economics , government (linguistics) , drug , drug control , variety (cybernetics) , estimation , public policy , economics , business , environmental health , economic growth , public administration , medicine , political science , computer science , pharmacology , law , population , philosophy , linguistics , management , artificial intelligence , humanities
Aims Many nations now spend large sums of government money to reduce drug problems. The size and composition of public expenditures aimed at reducing drug use and related problems (a drug budget) is a useful partial description of a nation's drug policy. This paper examines whether it is possible to estimate these sums in a consistent manner across nations. Methods Past drug budget efforts in the United Kingdom and United States were reviewed. A new methodology was offered for estimation and used for estimates of expenditures in the Netherlands and Sweden. Using this methodology, expenditures were compared. Findings In both the Netherlands and Sweden, with very different official drug policy rhetoric, enforcement expenditures dominate the total; prevention expenditures are a tiny share. The baseline estimates indicate that the Netherlands, by a variety of metrics (e.g. Euros per capita, Euros per problematic user), spends more on drug control, even enforcement, than Sweden but the range of estimates is such that this cannot be inferred with confidence. Conclusion Estimating total government expenditures on reducing drug use and related problems is feasible and can yield useful policy insights.