Cost of Substance Abuse in Canada

"In 2006 a team of researchers published estimates of the social costs of substance abuse in Canada across several domains based on 2002 data (Rehm et al., 2006). Total costs of substance abuse for all substances (including tobacco) were estimated to be $39.8 billion in 2002, which translates into $1,267 per capita. Of this, approximately 39% are direct costs to the economy associated with health care, enforcement, prevention/research and 'other costs'⁶, and 61% are indirect costs associated mainly with productivity losses resulting from premature death and disability. Figure 2 depicts the estimated direct social costs associated with alcohol, illicit drugs and cannabis in 2002.
"Important findings from Figure 2 include the fact that (1) total direct social costs associated with alcohol ($7,427.5 million) are more than double those for all illicit drugs combined ($3,565.5 million); (2) direct alcohol-related health care costs ($3,306.2 million) are nearly three times as high as for all illicit drugs, excluding cannabis ($1,061.6 million), and over 45 times higher than the direct health care costs of cannabis ($73 million); and (3) annual direct costs for health care ($4,440.7 million) are 31 times higher, and annual direct costs for enforcement ($5,407.7 million) are 36 times higher than annual costs for prevention and research ($147.6 million)."