> Americans spend about $100 billion on illegal drugs every year
So that's $350 per capita on average. That's a lot higher that I expected.
So that's $350 per capita on average. That's a lot higher that I expected.
>The Organization of American States estimated that the revenue for cocaine sales in the U.S. was $34 billion in 2013. The Office of National Drug Control Policy estimates that $100 billion worth of illegal drugs were sold in the U.S. in 2013
34 sounds more realistic to me
It's not an unreasonable guess.
The numbers are hard to get right. Here's something about different statistical methods that end up with very different numbers (about 650,000 people who used heroin in a year vs about 1.5 million people; about 60,000 people who use heroin nearly daily vs neary a million people who used heroin nearly daily.)
> http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsullum/2014/03/10/how-many-...
$100 billion is the ONDCP illegal drugs estimate.
You'd sort of expect the total value of illegal drugs sold in the US to be greater than the total value of cocaine sold in the US, since there are other illegal drugs besides cocaine.