SUBSTANCE ABUSE COSTS US $1,276 EACH

Annual Impact On Economy Jumps Since 1996

The abuse of alcohol, tobacco and illegal drugs costs the Canadian
economy almost $40 billion a year, a whopping tab that boils down to
$1,276 for every man, woman and child in the country, a new national
report says.

The study, being made public today by the Canadian Centre on
Substance Abuse, says the cost is up significantly from the last
comprehensive review in 1996, and should be cause for concern.

"It's a wakeup call for all of us to rethink how it is we should
address this problem," Michel Perron, the centre's chief executive
officer, said in an interview.

"While this is an accounting exercise in a sense of quantifying these
costs, I think we all know that substance abuse really does affect
every Canadian form to coast to coast to coast."

The report says two legal substances - tobacco followed by alcohol -
account for 80 per cent of the $39.8-billion toll that substance
abuse is taking on the economy.

However, the report says a dramatic increase in illegal drug abuse,
which ranks third, is cause for special concern. It says there was
more than a doubling of drug-related deaths between 1992 and 2002,
largely because of drug overdoses and the spread of previously
unmeasured hepatitis C.

Tobacco accounted for about $17 billion, or 42 per cent, of the total
estimate, alcohol accounted for $14.6 billion, or 36.6 per cent, and
illegal drugs for about $8.2 billion, or 20.7 per cent.

The report measured the impact of substance abuse on the health-care
system and the criminal justice system. It also weighed the indirect
impact on productivity as a result of premature death and ill-health.

Using a different breakout, the report traced $24.3 billion to lost
productivity because of death or illness, $8.8 billion to health-care
costs, and $5.4 billion to law enforcement costs.

Perron called the direct and indirect costs staggering. He said
Canadians would probably be surprised to know that 20 per cent of all
acute-care hospital days are the result of alcohol, tobacco and
illegal drug use.

"This is an enormous factor which impacts wait times, and which has
to be reduced to ultimately reduce the strain on our health care
system," he said.

The centre says the report, based on data from 2002, is a more
detailed and accurate reading of the costs than the first one it
produced in 1996.

The 1996 report, based on 1992 data, put the total cost of abuse at
$18.5 billion a year.

The report says the impact of substance abuse was relatively uniform
across the country. The exception was the three northern territories,
where the costs are higher than in the provinces.

The one silver lining is a reduction of 2.2 per cent in deaths and
illnesses related to tobacco consumption.