International Guidelines for Estimating the Costs of Substance Abuse

The International guidelines for estimating the costs of substance abuse presents a general framework for the development of cost estimates. A matrix of the types of costs to be considered is presented and there is a detailed discussion of the theoretical issues involved including: the definition of abuse determination of causality comparison of the demographic and human capital approaches to cost estimation the treatment and measurement of addictive consumption the treatment of private costs the measurement of intangible costs the treatment of non-workforce mortality and morbidity etc. Special considerations are discussed with regard to developing economies and drug-producing countries. The guidelines conclude with a brief discussion of future directions and the implications of these guidelines to research agendas and data collection systems.