Drugs and Growth-Efficient Prevention: An Inter-temporal Portfolio of Machos, Narcos and Angels

Abstract

In many countries substance abuse is a social epidemic. This paper deals conceptually with some macroeconomic aspects of widespread substance abuse with special reference to narcotic drugs. The labour force is divided into non-using and therefore fully productive workers, a number of whom are employed by the government in drug-use prevention, and only partially productive drug users. An efficient management of the nation’s portfolio of workers is taken to be the trajectory of drug-prevention that maximises the present value of the stream of the disposable national incomes.Substance abuse, labour productivity, national income