Social and economic costs of illicit drugs

UN Chronicle, Summer, 1998

Substance abuse and addition have changed he very nature of life for societies all over the world. One of the most important social and economic consequences of drug abuse is crime. This is especially so in urban areas, where crime associated with illicit drugs infects many long-accepted ways of doing even the simple things in life. It determines how people drive and park their cars, protect their homes and families, go to work, school, shopping or worship, and even how they look at one another. All of the component parts of the criminal justice system designed to protect the public by enforcing restrictions on the availability of drugs fall into the category of social costs of drug abuse. So do the costs of limiting children's freedom to play and learn, of narrowing one's own interests and groups, of circumscribing the quality of one's life. Economic costs that directly or indirectly are attributable at least in part to drugs include: higher car and home insurance due to property crime and loss; the costs of changing modes or routes of transportation; public spending to prevent abuse and enforce drug laws. Similarly, health costs associated with drug abuse have both social and economic prices: the spread of blood-borne and sexually transmitted diseases through dirty needles or drug-related prostitution; overburdened health care systems; higher public and private health care costs for everyone. Illicit drugs also help determine the cost of doing business. Functional impairment caused by drug use leads to: costly mistakes and accidents; higher job turnover and absenteeism rates; theft and other crimes; increased health care and disability costs, and more. Costs are passed on to consumers or, worse, can lead to lax safety and deadly accidents. Organized criminal cartels assassinate officials, infest public life with corruption and develop ties with terrorist groups. Below are just a few facts o the social, economic, health and environmental impact of illicit drugs.

* Identifiable costs of drug abuse, including drug-related crime costs, law enforcement costs and health costs, range from 0.5 to 1.3 per cent of gross domestic product in most consumer countries.

* With rapid social and economic changes over the past several decades, there has been a dramatic increase in use among women and children in both developed and developing countries. Since many female substance abusers are of child-bearing age, negative effects on fetuses are a growing concern.

* There is an increasing involvement of women in illicit production and trafficking of drugs. They are the predominant harvesters of opium in Asia and coca leaves in South America. Nevertheless, many cultures still accept some drug and alcohol use by males, while disapproving of it by women.

* A recent trend is towards the use of multiple substances, with people moving from one substance to another or using drugs in combinations. Intoxication, poisoning and overdoses are increasing as these new combinations of substances are being used.

* While cocaine use can lead to higher rates of acquisitive crime, its consumers also carry out a wide range of non-drug crime and non-criminal activity to support their use.

* There are high rates of drug abuse among doctors, nurses, miliary personnel, business executives, truck drivers, pilots and workers on mass production assembly lines.

* Estimates suggest that approximately 15 million people worldwide incur a significant risk to their health as a result of using psychoactive substances. One third of these users inject drugs, and many experts believe this figure to be underestimated.

* The proportion of injecting drug abusers in national HIV/AIDS populations ranges from countries with less than 10 per cent (United Kingdom, Belgium) to a number of countries with more than 60 per cent (Thailand, Italy, Myanmar and Spain). Most other countries are within this range.

* Due to increased global consumption of illicit drugs, substance abuse-related mortality has more than tripled over the last decade. Recent figures suggest drug injection is responsible for between 100,000 and 200,000 deaths per year.

* During cultivation of coca and opium poppy plants, growers use powerful herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers, often without technical knowledge of their use and potential harmful effects on the environment.

* The intensification of coca cultivation in the Huallaga flood plain and adjacent low hills in Peru, as well as vigorous expansion into highland forest environments, is responsible for the annihilation of nearly 1 million hectares of tropical forest resources.

* The destruction of the Amazonian rain forest for coca cultivation contributes to the loss of rare plant species from which future pharmaceutical drugs and other beneficial substances may be developed. One in six prescription drugs has a tropical plant source as an active chemical.

* An estimated three quarters of the world's plant-based pharmaceuticals, including aspirin, quinine, cocaine and morphine, have been derived from medicinal plants found following leads from indigenous medicine. Modern medicine has increased the potency of some of these derivatives, which have hit indigenous people through intravenous heroin and cocaine use and contributed dramatically to the escalating indigenous drug problem.