Estimating the Cost-Effectiveness of Cocaine Control Programs

Estimating the Cost-Effectiveness of Cocaine Control Programs

PI(s): C. Peter Rydell, Susan Everingham

Funded by: Office of National Drug Control Policy, U.S. Army, The Ford Foundation

RAND researchers employed a new model of the cocaine market (see "Modeling the Demand for Cocaine") to analyze the relative cost-effectiveness of four kinds of cocaine control programs, as the basis for evaluating their impact on cocaine consumption. The four types of programs evaluated were source country control, interdiction, enforcement within the United States, and treating heavy users. The researchers developed an economic model of cocaine supply and demand and of the effects of control programs on supply and demand. Supply-side outcome measures included quantities of cocaine seized, value of assets seized, numbers of drug dealers and their agents arrested, and the amounts of time they were incarcerated. Demand-side outcome measures included the number of people who stopped using drugs while in treatment and the number who stayed off drugs after treatment. Because the outcome measures for supply and demand could not be directly compared, they were translated into a common measure of cost-effectiveness: the cost of a given reduction in U.S. consumption of cocaine. Model runs suggested that at the margin, treating heavy users could be several times more cost-effective than the most cost-effective of the enforcement approaches.