Imagine for the moment, a family living in a nice suburb. There are three children of varying ages, with one in high school and one in middle school. The father and mother have a glass of wine occasionally, or a beer with a barbecue and maybe a mild over-the-counter painkiller from time to time. The children receive no other drugs than perhaps an antibiotic or children’s aspirin from time to time
This family might feel that they are free from the effects of drug abuse. No one is buying marijuana and using it, there are no opiate painkillers used or abused. No one gets drunk. Therefore, they might feel that the entire subject of drug abuse is something they don’t need to pay any attention to.
They would be wrong. They are paying for drug abuse in many different ways. It’s just that these ways are unseen by them. Let’s look at a few of these.
1. Like any community in the US, there are people in their town using drugs or drinking a damaging amount of alcohol. Every day, when the mom drives the kids to school or to after-school events, she is passing people on the road who are impaired by their substance abuse. Sometimes everyone gets where they are going safely and sometimes this impairment results in an accident. Drug or alcohol use contributes to an increased number of traffic accident fatalities, whether it’s the driver of a car that gets into an accident or an intoxicated pedestrian or bicycle rider who wanders into traffic. So every time she takes to the road, she and her children are at increased risk of injury or death because of these drivers. This risk is reflected in their car and health insurance rates. If they do have an accident because of one of these intoxicated operators, then there will be pain, anxiety, loss of productivity and income losses, plus healthcare and car repair costs.
2. The family has insurance on their home and the items in the home. When heroin and methamphetamine use increases in their town, so does the drug-related crime. More homes in their town are broken into. Their home insurance rates increase.
3. Their state allows medical marijuana purchases and use. One of the commonly-documented effects of marijuana use is a loss of motivation. A person using a lot of marijuana is likely to lose some or much of their concern about the challenges of daily life. Some of the people in this town are heavy users and have become unemployed. They are collecting unemployment and getting free health care. Some of them have developed mental or physical illnesses as a result of the stress of marijuana use on their bodies. This increases their healthcare costs that are being paid by the city, county or state. A few of them resort of crime to be able to keep paying for marijuana, contributing to higher insurance rates as in #2 above.
4. No one in this family has been arrested for drugs or drug-related crime but they are paying for the arrest, prosecution, incarceration and monitoring during probation or parole of those who have been. They pay for these services through their property taxes, city, county and state taxes.
5. The father has a restaurant supply business with a dozen employees. His accountant is addicted to pain pills but the father doesn’t know it. The accountant manages to sneak away tens of thousands of dollars before anyone finds out. One of the father’s regular employees is using methamphetamine and because of the resulting paranoia, is intimidating the other employees. The father fires the man who then turns around and sues from wrongful termination. It’s a frivolous lawsuit but the father must spend money defending himself and his company.
The US Department of Justice estimated the cost of illicit drug abuse (not even including alcohol) in 2007 at $193 billion dollars. This means that each person in this family is paying more than $630 per year for the illicit drug use of other people. For this family of five, that means more than $4000 annually. Add to that the cost of alcohol abuse, with the many type of illness resulting from overuse of alcohol such as heart disease and cancer, and the final number will be much higher.
If it were somehow possible for Americans to recover from addiction and to lose their interest in illicit drug or overuse of alcohol, the entire society would benefit from reduced costs, greater safety and increased productivity across the boards.
http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana-abuse/how-does-marijuana-use-affect-your-brain-body
http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/topics-in-brief/marijuana http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/marijuana-facts-parents-need-to-know/want-to-know-more—-some-faqs-about-marijuana
