The Cost of Drug Addiction to Society

Just as it isn't really possible to accurately estimate the costs of Drug abuse in terms of lives ruined, diminished capacities and lost dreams, it is impossible to put a dollar figure to the immense waste of resources and potentials that drugs exact from the peoples of Earth today.  A recent guess from NIDA , (National Institute on Drug Abuse), said $143 billion in only one year in the US alone.   That comes to a cost of more than five hundred dollars for every man woman or child in the country each year.

Think drug use doesn't hurt anyone? Think again.

It's sometimes hard to see the damage that drugs cause---there's drug Addiction, of course, but there's a whole lot more. The families, the medical system, the environment. Innocent kids, caught in the crossfire. Drivers killed or injured by those under the influence. Babies found at meth labs, their toys covered with chemicals. Victims of terrorists, whose acts are financed with drug profits.

Over 26,000 individuals died from drug-induced causes in the United States in 2002, seven times more than those killed in all of the September 11 attacks. Direct costs include those for drug treatment, health care, costs of goods and services lost to crime, law enforcement, incarceration, and the judicial system fees. Indirect costs are those due to the loss of productivity from death, human suffering, drug abuse-related illnesses and crime and all the victims of crime.

Most people affected by drugs aren't users--but they pay the price...and so do you. And when people choose to use, they are not just hurting themselves. Drug use isn't a victimless crime, although many people want you to believe that. Where do you think the money for a bag of Marijuana goes? Or for a kilo of Heroin? Or a gram of Cocaine?

Where do you think the chemicals used in meth labs go once they are discarded? Where do they take the babies whose parents get sent to prison for manufacturing? Who pays to take care of these kids?

And what about you---do you mind sharing the road with a drugged driver? Do you want your little sister or brother riding on a school bus while the driver's high on drugs?

Independence From Drugs  

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