Database managed by the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction and its utility to estimate the social costs of using illicit drugs
2017
Abstract
The aim of the text is to present a publicly available database operated by the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA). Furthermore, the aim of this text is to evaluate its potential to assess the social costs of illicit drug use and effectiveness of European public drug policies.
The database contains data on various aspects of illicit drug use in the European Union and in several other associated countries. The article presents selected economic approaches to the evaluation of drug policies, basic characteristics of the database and its current use.
The possibilities of its use are discussed with regard to the calculation of the social costs of illicit drug use.