The Implication of Drug Abuse in British Economy
Drug abuse is a serious problem of modern society. It influences almost all areas of social and individual life of the person. It has negative impact on the criminal situation, economic and cultural level of the country. In my article I will centre on the negative impact drug abuse has on the British economy and the way government resists this problem.
When study the impact of drug industry on the economy of the country and each separate individual it’s necessary to take into account three main categories of illicit drugs. First category consists of illicit drugs which are produced from natural products and these group includes such drugs as morphine, heroine and opium. Second category consists of illicit drugs produced synthetically and includes such drugs as amphetamines. Psychoactive pharmaceutical drugs constitute the last category. It’s necessary to keep in mind that different groups of drugs have different impact on the economy of the country. Drugs can have different impact to the life of an individual. They can occupy complementive or substitutive place. In the cases when person is really a drug edict the is much probability that he of she will take more than one kind of drugs. Researches have proved that the drugs of the second and third groups are oftener used to complement the drugs from the first group. Each group of drugs has different impact on the metal, physical and emotional state of an individual and the use of different drugs makes the study of the problem more difficult. Same it makes more difficult to study the economic effect of complement or substitute drugs and this should also taken into account.
Drug abuse has strong negative effects on the British economy. “An investigation commissioned by the European Community found that the identifiable costs of drug trafficking and abuse amounted to $3.2 billion 43 in the United Kingdom, equivalent to 0.4 per cent of GDP or about $60 per capita. Of that amount, about 85 per cent was the value of stolen property, thus clearly identifying crime as the most important side-effect of drug abuse.” (Commission of the European Communities). Every day the country loses millions of pounds because of drug abuse. Sadly but the problem of drug abuse has the tendency to grow and drug addiction brings more and more damage to the economy of the country. Money, which could have been spent on the health care or the development of educational sphere, is spent on the fight with drug abuse. “Based on estimates of some 130,000 to 150,000 hard-core abusers, the average annual costs to society per addict were thus approximately £13,000, or approximately $23,100.” (Commission of the European Communities).
