Public expenditures on illicit drugs in Germany in 2006

Aim: In order to evaluate the adequacy of public spending on illicit drugs, there has to be a sound record of the actual amount of expenditures in the first place. As there has been no scientific overview of public spending on illicit drugs in Germany so far, aim of the project was to provide for the first time a comprehensive estimation of direct labelled and non-labelled expenditures by the federal, state and local government as well as social security funds in the year 2006. Method: The data collection on government level started with the analysis of publicly available budget documents in search of data on drug-related expenditures. In a second step, written requests to specify relevant expenditures were sent to ministries, associations and key informants identified through a snowball sampling procedure. Following this collection of data, gaps were identified where further expenditure was assumed but could not be specified (i.e. non-labelled expenditure) and alternative estimation procedures were developed. Where only very broad budgets were available, a suitable repartition key was identified and applied to isolate drug-related expenditure. On the level of social security funds the compilation of data was effected through standardized questionnaires. For the evaluation of the statutory health insurances the 40 biggest companies were questioned. Afterwards data were extrapolated to have an estimate for all health insurances. Regarding pension funds a questionnaire was sent to the „Rentenversicherung Bund“. In matters of accident insurance there is no reimbursement for accidents related to illicit drugs and projects for the prevention of drug abuse were not allocated separately and could therefore not be included in the estimation. Results: Overall, an amount of 3.7 to 4.6 billion Euros spent by government and social security funds for tackling with illicit drugs resulted from processing available data. This can be regarded as a conservative estimation of the actual expenditure. Discussion: Despite some methodological challenges and lacking information in many fields, the identified amount is the result of a systematic and transparent exercise and gives a first idea of public spending on illicit drugs in Germany. It still gives no information about the adequacy or actual benefit of these expenditures. However, this study provides the necessary basis for such cost evaluations in the future and contributes to a more objective discussion.