About

Substance Use Costs and Harms

Healthcare

Healthcare

Lost Productivity

Lost Productivity

Criminal Justice

Criminal Justice

Other Direct Costs

Other Direct Costs

Healthcare

Healthcare

Lost Productivity

Lost Productivity

Criminal Justice

Criminal Justice

Other Direct Costs

Other Direct Costs

Healthcare

Healthcare

Lost Productivity

Lost Productivity

Criminal Justice

Criminal Justice

Other Direct Costs

Other Direct Costs

Substance use is a significant cost to the Canadian economy.

It has a direct impact on the healthcare and criminal justice systems as well as an indirect economic impact through lost productivity illness, injury and premature death.

With a better understanding of the economic, health and social costs of substance use in Canada — supported by comparable, valid and up-to-date data — federal and provincial/territorial public health experts will be able to:

Lost Productivity
Prioritize and target relevant public policies
Healthcare
Create initiatives to target the harms caused by substance use
Criminal Justice
Identify information gaps, research needs and refinements to be made to national data reporting systems
Other Direct Costs
Establish a baseline for measuring changes in policy and determining the effectiveness of harm-reduction programs

Objectives of This Project

The Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA) and the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research (CISUR) had two main objectives for the Canadian Substance Use Costs and Harms project:

Provide updated data on the costs of substance use in Canada

The Canadian Substance Use Costs and Harms project recently updated its estimates of the costs of substance use in Canada. The update includes newly estimated national costs and costs for each province and territory from 2015 to 2017. Select below to view either national or provincial and territorial substance use costs.

National
resources

Provincial and Territorial
resources

Launch an interactive data visualization tool.

The Tool allows for ongoing monitoring and in-depth exploration of the harms and costs of substance use over time. The methods behind this tool build on the work of CISUR’s alcohol and other drug AOD monitoring project.

Explore the data

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