Estimated Annual Public Expenditure on Drugs in the UK

Economics

"Labelled public expenditure on drugs is estimated at around £1.1 billion per annum. Data on labelled public expenditure on drugs have been provided to the UK Focal Point annually from government departments and the devolved administrations but changes to drug funding in England makes the identification of drug-specific expenditure increasingly difficult. A recent estimate of the economic and social costs of drug supply in the UK for 2010/11 put the cost at around £10.7 billion (Mills et al. 2013). Using a similar methodology to a social and economic costs study in England and Wales for 2003/04 (Gordon et al. 2006), it was estimated that the economic and social costs of illicit drug use in Scotland were £3.5 billion in 2006 (Casey et al. 2009)."