• Illicit drugs in Australian society are associated with health, social, and economic burdens. Governments respond to the wide-ranging implications of illicit drug use and supply by mobilising the substantial social and economic resources represented across four different domains – law enforcement, prevention, treatment, and harm reduction.

    This new Monograph provides an analysis of government spending in those four domains for the financial year 2021/2022. The results reveal that Australian governments spent $5.5 billion on illicit drug countermeasures, with the largest proportion in law enforcement (64.3%).

    It is the third such ‘drug budget’ (the first was in 2002/2003, DPMP Monograph #1; the second was for the financial year 2009/2010, DPMP Monograph #24). A top-down approach was employed to derive estimates, which was possible for prevention, treatment, and law enforcement. A bottom-up approach was employed to derive estimates for the domain of harm reduction.