Drugs in Figures III

Study of public expenditures on drug control and drug problems

auteurs Delfine Lievens
  Freya Vander Laenen
  Jonathan Caulkins
  Brice De Ruyver
tijdschrift GofS (ISSN: )
jaargang 2012
aflevering European Criminal Justice and Policy
onderdeel Artikelen
publicatie datum 14 september 2012
taal English
pagina 41
keywords drug policy, illegal and legal drugs, Public expenditure, cross-country comparison
samenvatting

There is growing interest in public expenditure studies with regard to drug policy. These studies have a potential role on multiple levels. They provide insight into how drug expenditures are composed and what the public authorities’ so-called ‘policy mix’ is. Moreover, in view of the growing demands for accountability and evidencebased policy, these studies show whether the government’s stated priorities for drug policy are mirrored in their actual expenditures. Finally, the potential role of public expenditures studies increases with a comparison over time and across countries. These comparisons may provide important insight into the dynamics of drug policy. The present study serves as both an important case study – in this case of Belgian public expenditures – and also as a model to explore the potential role(s) of public expenditure studies more generally.
This paper measures the public expenditures (anno 2008) of Belgian drug policy. It advances beyond two previous studies (De Ruyver et al. 2004, 2007) in two distinct ways: by carrying out a new and more refined estimation of public expenditures on illegal drugs and by providing a first estimation of expenditures concerning legal drugs (tobacco, alcohol and psychoactive medication). Drugs in Figures III combines two methods of data-collection for the inventory of public expenditures. The top-down
approach starts from the resources made available by the different public authorities involved in drug policy. The bottom-up approach starts from activities taking place in the field and traces the money flow back to the public authorities’ funding. The results of ‘Drugs in Figures III’ make two important contributions. Firstly, the study presents the percentage of government money for drugs that is spent on the traditional four pillars of drug control: prevention, treatment, harm reduction and law enforcement. Secondly, public expenditures on illegal drugs anno 2008, put in comparative perspective with the previous estimations of ‘Drugs in Figures II’, gives insight into the evolution of public expenditure on drugs over time. The potential third level being a cross-country comparison encounters more difficulties because of conceptual and methodological differences in expenditure measurement across countries. The cross country comparison shows that a uniform methodology
is necessary to estimate the public expenditures in different countries, studying expenditures for legal and illegal drugs.