TL;DR:

  • Alcohol $7.8b
  • All illicits: $1.8b
  • Meth: $0.365b

I wanted a figure for cannabis and found this from 2020:

PDF https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/the-nz-illicit-drug-harm-index-2020-10-feb.pdf

  • All illicits: $1.9b
  • Meth: $0.824b
  • Cannabis: $0.911

I notice that the per kilograms measure for harm is also useful to account for volume of usage, but think that per ‘dose’ would be better.

  • Meth: $1.1m per kg with 743kg consumption
  • Cannabis: $0.35m per kg with 58000kg consumption

These figures include ‘associative crime’ as harm. So it apparent counts the cost of buying it as harm, it also counts the tax loss of that expenditure, so IMHO it skews unfavourabley to higher expenditure. But put that aside.

These figures show that all illicit drugs combined are less harmful to society than alcohol, and tautologically the harm is inflated by illegality.

  • Optional
    link
    155 months ago

    Yeah, the US has known for a long time that alcohol is involved in the vast majority of violent crime. We deal with it by having corrupt politicians write the alcohol laws so that no one is ever very far from lots of booze.

      • Optional
        link
        55 months ago

        Yeah, but to be fair a lot of things in the 1920’s US politics didn’t work.

        Also the whole criminalization aspect to substance abuse is finally being talked about openly as a major failure in policy.

        • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet
          link
          English
          35 months ago

          Banning things in general should be an absolute last-ditch effort, not the go-to response that it is today. We’re supposed to be a free society, and I think a lot of citizens have lost sight of what that means.

          • Optional
            link
            25 months ago

            More than that I think society still doesn’t talk about addiction in a useful, healthy way very often. Alcohol being so ingrained in many cultures that it’s basically invisible to many people.