From SAMHSA's Weekly Financing News Pulse: National Edition - May 27, 2011: On May 26, the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) released The Economic Impact of Illicit Drug Use on American Society, estimating that illegal drug use had an economic impact of $193 billion in 2007.  The authors examined the economic impact of illegal drug use on crime, health, and productivity, attributing the primary cost of illegal drug use to lost productivity, at $120.3 billion.  The authors determined that crime and health costs of illegal drug use totaled $61.4 billion and $11.4 billion, respectively.  NDIC also employed an alternate model, under which lost productivity due to incarceration and homicide were treated as crime costs.  Under that model, crime costs totaled $113.3 billion and productivity costs were estimated at $68.4 billion, though the overall total was unchanged.