What the US spends on illegal drugs

People who use drugs in the United States spent on the around $150 billion on cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine in 2016. The market for marijuana is roughly the size of the cocaine and methamphetamine markets combined, and the retail heroin market is now closer to the size of the marijuana market than it is to the other drugs, suggesting the opioid crisis is getting more and more severe.

Additional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that drug overdose deaths in 2018 exceeded 68,000, of which more than 47,000 involved opioids. Although heroin and the opioids receive most of the attention, deaths involving methamphetamine and cocaine are both on the rise. In addition, more than 25 percent of the U.S. population lives in states that have passed laws that allow for-profit firms to produce and sell marijuana for nonmedical purposes to adults ages 21 and older.