Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 11, 2026

Drug Repurposing Hypothesis Generation Using the "RE:fine Drugs" System
Published on: December 11, 2016
What drug policies cost: estimating government drug policy expenditures
1School of Public Policy, University of Maryland and the RAND Corporation, MD, USA. preuter@umed.edu
Aims:
Many nations now spend large sums of government money to reduce drug problems. The size and composition of public expenditures aimed at reducing drug use and related problems (a drug budget) is a useful partial description of a nation's drug policy. This paper examines whether it is possible to estimate these sums in a consistent manner across nations.
Methods:
Past drug budget efforts in the United Kingdom and United States were reviewed. A new methodology was offered for estimation and used for estimates of expenditures in the Netherlands and Sweden. Using this methodology, expenditures were compared.
Findings:
In both the Netherlands and Sweden, with very different official drug policy rhetoric, enforcement expenditures dominate the total; prevention expenditures are a tiny share. The baseline estimates indicate that the Netherlands, by a variety of metrics (e.g. Euros per capita, Euros per problematic user), spends more on drug control, even enforcement, than Sweden but the range of estimates is such that this cannot be inferred with confidence.
Conclusion:
Estimating total government expenditures on reducing drug use and related problems is feasible and can yield useful policy insights.
Related Concept Videos
Drug Control Governance: Regulatory Bodies and Their Impact
Drug Regulation
Pharmacodynamic Models: Additive and Proportional Drug Effect Model
Prescription, Nonprescription and Orphan Drugs
The misuse and addiction to prescription drugs is a growing problem that can affect people of all age groups, specifically teenagers. This can happen when prescription medications are used in ways not intended by the prescriber, such as taking someone else's prescription or using medication for...
Pharmaceutical Poisoning: Potential Scenarios
Drug Concentrations: Measurements
Plasma —...
