Compare estimates by year, geography, method and uncertainty.
Coverage: 11 sourced estimate and method records. Different measures, years and geographies; repeated estimates are not independent observations.
Retail expenditure, profit, gross value added and social costs are different measures. We do not add them together, average incompatible estimates or infer present-day market value by applying inflation alone. Publication date and reference year are separate. A later document repeating an earlier estimate is not an independent measurement. Coverage, assumptions and the relationship between estimates are recorded explicitly.
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Methodological update of 20 October 2026
We have removed the wider arithmetic stress range from the summary and current scenario table while seeking clarification of the aggregate uncertainty margin published in the Home Office’s proceeds-of-crime study. The source figures remain unchanged. CLA’s UK extrapolations remain conditional illustrations. We have clarified which calculations can be reproduced from public information; the available evidence still does not establish a complete, consistently measured UK total.
The published annexes describe the wastewater methodology, but the underlying NCA retail price and purity inputs and calculation code are not publicly available. The workbook and accompanying script reproduce CLA’s population extrapolations from published values; they do not reproduce or independently validate the underlying WAND consumption and valuation models.
Findings from release 1.2
Different figures answer different questions. The register now connects the report’s recent Home Office valuation, the ONS vintage comparison and the October wastewater trend update to their sources. It preserves the earlier June ONS observation as historical.
The Home Office combined valuation contains a six-drug England subtotal and a separate England-and-Wales cannabis model; it is not a full UK total. ONS household expenditure is a different estimation family. The October consumption-trend release supplies no replacement national monetary total.
Read the full evidence review · Inspect all 29 references and their roles · Reproduce the conditional UK scenarios
CLA’s contribution is the source comparison and transparent conditional arithmetic. The scenarios are not official estimates, forecasts or statistical confidence intervals.
Full findings, methods and record index · Previous releases and changes
Cite and reuse
Civil Liberties Action (2026). The illegal drugs economy [Dataset]. Version 1.2, 2026-10-20. https://cla-political-finance.copperchime4.chatgpt.site/databases/releases/2026-10-20-v1.2/economy-research.html
BibTeX RIS Full CSV Full JSON Reproducibility package
For an individual observation, cite its fixed-version record and the original source. Credit original publishers for their figures; CLA supplies the compilation, coding and stated analysis. Reuse terms.
Source examples
- UK retail market, 2003/04 — Home Office Online Report 16/06: Measuring different aspects of problem drug use, second edition
- England and Wales retail market, 2016/17 — Dame Carol Black: Review of Drugs, evidence pack (Home Office/PHE analysis)
- Social and economic harms, England 2017/18 — Dame Carol Black: Review of Drugs, evidence pack (Home Office/PHE analysis)
Methods, review limits and corrections. Release 2026-10-16; AI-assisted compilation, with no independent external review completed.