Catalogue
Newsletter
Public expenditure on supply reduction policies (2017)
Supply reduction is often the main approach used for addressing the illicit drug problem.
Evaluating drug policy is an integral part of a cost-efficient approach to tackle illicit drugs. This report takes a first step towards a systematic analysis, by examining a set of representative attempts to estimate public expenditure on supply reduction interventions. It proposes a common set of definitions, aiming to establish a common basis for understanding this topic and facilitating comparability in three main dimensions: time, policy and countries. Although it is mainly confined to supply reduction expenditures, in order to set the context, it describes the proportion that total drugrelated expenditure represents of national public spending and presents the balance between demand and supply reduction spending for a number of European countries. Finally, with the aim of facilitating and promoting future empirical expenditure studies and of setting the ground for the development of good practices, relevant data sources and methodologies applied are listed and discussed and examples of sectorial models of public spending are selectively provided.
FOREWORD
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INTRODUCTION
DEFINING CONCEPTS
Public expenditure
Drug-related public expenditure
Public expenditure on supply reduction initiatives
EMPIRICAL ESTIMATES OF DEMAND AND SUPPLY POLICY EXPENDITURE
STEPS IN COST ESTIMATION AND ANALYSIS
Defining the scope and objects
Making an inventory of service providers
Mapping financing entities
Data collection
Classifying and identifying data on drug-related spending
Extracting expenditure data from sources: labelled and unlabelled expenditure
Reporting the value of estimates
EXAMPLES OF SECTORIAL MODELS
Police
Customs
Court systems
Prisons
EXAMPLES OF NATIONAL STUDIES
Croatia
Belgium
Italy
France
Luxembourg
Russia
Portugal
Other national studies
INTERNATIONAL DATABASES USED TO MODEL DRUG-RELATED PUBLIC EXPENDITURE
CONCLUSIONS
RECOMMENDATIONS
GLOSSARY
REFERENCES
APPENDIX 1 – AVAILABLE DATABASES AND POTENTIAL INDICATORS FOR DRUG-RELATED PUBLIC EXPENDITURES
APPENDIX 2 – THE INTERNATIONAL CLASSIFICATION OF THE FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT (COFOG)
APPENDIX 3 – SUMMARY TABLES: DATA FROM INTERNATIONAL DATABASES
ACRONYMS
TABLE REFERENCES
Supply reduction is often the main approach used for addressing the illicit drug problem.
Evaluating drug policy is an integral part of a cost-efficient approach to tackle illicit drugs. This report takes a first step towards a systematic analysis, by examining a set of representative attempts to estimate public expenditure on supply reduction interventions. It proposes a common set of definitions, aiming to establish a common basis for understanding this topic and facilitating comparability in three main dimensions: time, policy and countries. Although it is mainly confined to supply reduction expenditures, in order to set the context, it describes the proportion that total drugrelated expenditure represents of national public spending and presents the balance between demand and supply reduction spending for a number of European countries. Finally, with the aim of facilitating and promoting future empirical expenditure studies and of setting the ground for the development of good practices, relevant data sources and methodologies applied are listed and discussed and examples of sectorial models of public spending are selectively provided.