To understand how the complex problem of drug use and dependence may be addressed, it is necessary to understand its many facets ranging from policies of drug containment to the provision of prevention and treatment services. Whether it be illegal drugs such as marijuana, heroin, and cocaine or legal substances including cigarettes and alcohol, drug use is a deeply imbedded characteristic of society. An immense amount of money and human resources is spent in the United States to address drug use. For example, the cost of substance abuse to the U.S. economy each year is estimated to be over 414 billion dollars. In terms of illegal drugs alone, the U.S. drug market has been estimated to be 150 billion dollars a year. The annual federal anti-drug budget for law enforcement is about 12 billion dollars per year; and about 3 billion dollars goes to overseas drug wars alone with about half of that amount going to Colombia to eliminate opium and coca cultivation. It has been reported that substance abuse and addiction will add at least 41 billion dollars to the costs of elementary and secondary education for 2001 due to class disruption and violence, special education and tutoring, teacher turnover, truancy, children left behind, student assistance programs, property damage, injury, and counseling. The cost to the nation for each of its hard-core addicts, per year, is about 30,000 dollars. The amount spent on the drug problem does not include the cost of drug use measured in human suffering, increased violence, and lost lives, nor does it include the damage done by cigarettes and alcohol. The second, updated edition of this important work examines issues about the use and abuse of legal and illegal drugs from multiple perspectives including the social context of reality, historical and present patterns of use, causal factors associated with addiction, research findings including those of a cross-cultural nature, case studies of addicts, and the management of services provision.
