RESEARCH / VERSION 1.1 / 16 OCTOBER 2026
The illegal drugs economy
What do estimates of the drugs economy really measure?
Coverage: 11 sourced estimate and method records. Different measures, years and geographies; repeated estimates are not independent observations.
Findings and their limits
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.
Cite and reuse
Civil Liberties Action (2026). The illegal drugs economy [Dataset]. Version 1.1, 2026-10-16. https://cla-political-finance.copperchime4.chatgpt.site/databases/releases/2026-10-16-v1.1/economy-research.html
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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.
Methods and selection
Unit of analysis
One sourced estimate, vintage or contextual method record. Components, variants, repeated statements and related source families are explicitly related, not counted as independent estimates.
Inclusion and coverage
The expanded register covers the report's principal recent Home Office valuation, ONS vintage comparison and October trend update alongside the original seven records. All 29 report references are mapped to a source role; some historical/subject-specific models remain report-only rather than separate structured records.
Coding and checks
- Keep geography, substances, measured period, publication/update date, units, price basis and estimate family. Retail spending, equivalent consumption value, national accounts, social costs and GDP contributions are not interchangeable.
- The September ONS vintage is used for the report comparison. June is retained as historical. Revision of a past-year number does not establish a new change in consumption.
- The Home Office combined figure contains the six-drug subtotal; do not add it again. Alternative cannabis models substitute for each other. Later consumption trend evidence does not supply a new national monetary total.
- CLA's UK scenarios are separately labelled calculations. They assume equal spending per resident outside measured geographies and use one population vintage. The arithmetic stress tests are not confidence intervals, forecasts, minima or maxima.
Selection-history limitation
The first pilots were assembled through purposive discovery and source checking. Their complete original search-engine query/results history was not retained, so the first selection cannot be replayed exactly. This limitation is not repaired by writing a retrospective systematic-search claim. Published records and transformations can be reproduced from the supplied files; prospective expansion protocols below define the next collection work.
Prospective expansion protocol
Search official analytical releases, national accounts, original research and direct testimony. Follow cited original estimates and log repeated-source relationships. Add new structured records only after checking definition, coverage and vintage; preserve superseded observations and identify links to the report.
Interpretation limits
No reconciled, consistently measured current UK total is established. The report is a structured evidence review, not a formally registered systematic review.
Dates and accountability
Release date is the date of this publication. reviewed_at records a stated evidence check, not proof that every fact remains current. Publication date, event date, reference period, document version and source-check date are separate fields.
Published by Civil Liberties Action. Compilation, source retrieval and drafting used AI assistance. Automated integrity checks and additional source checks are described below; no independent external or specialist review is claimed.
Download the protocol and dictionary
Data dictionary
| Field | Definition |
|---|---|
| id / record_id | Stable record identifier; retained across releases where the unit remains the same. |
| release / version | Publication date and release version, separate from the date of underlying evidence. |
| record_url / citation | Fixed-version record link and suggested citation. |
| category / geography / period | Display group, actual coverage and source reference period; not a harmonised statistical panel. |
| reviewed_at | Date of the recorded source check, subject to its stated scope. |
| details / sources | Labelled observations and original URLs, titles and locators. |
| limitations | Record-specific boundary on interpretation. |
| raw | Underlying typed source/coding fields; null remains missing, not zero. |
| value / unit / price_basis | Reported number and measure, with no invented common price basis. |
| estimate_family / parent_estimate_id | Dependence, repetition, components and related estimates. |
| relationship / superseded_by | Source relationship or later vintage; old observations remain traceable. |
| variants / components | Alternatives substitute; components are already included where stated. |
Fixed-version records
| Record | Reference period | Status |
|---|---|---|
| UK retail market, 2003/04 | 2003/04 | Published estimate |
| England and Wales retail market, 2016/17 | 2016/17 | Published estimate |
| Social and economic harms, England 2017/18 | 2017/18 | Published estimate |
| Drugs in UK GDP, 2010 | 2010 | Published estimate |
| ONS narcotics expenditure, 2025 — June 2026 vintage | 2025 | Historical data vintage |
| Home Office confirms the existing estimate, 2025 | 2016/17 (repeated in 2025) | Repeats earlier estimate |
| NCA’s 2026 assessment: market context | 2025 assessed in 2026 | Context / method record |
| ONS narcotics expenditure, 2025 — September 2026 vintage | 2025 | Published estimate |
| Six-drug equivalent retail value, England 2024–25 | August 2024–July 2025 | Published estimate |
| Drug-supply valuation, mixed England / England-and-Wales coverage | Labelled year ending March 2024; mixed input periods | Published estimate |
| Wastewater trends at 16 English sites, 2021–26 | January–April sampling windows, 2021–2026 | Context / method record |
Corrections, funding and interests
Send the record identifier, proposed correction and supporting primary source to policy@civillibertiesaction.org.uk. Corrections are assessed against the same evidence rules for all subjects. Responses, reversals and corrected outcomes receive the same factual prominence as initial decisions. Substantive changes require a dated new release and a change-log entry; the old files remain available.
CLA's existing funding and interests statement applies. Its founder has disclosed Labour Party membership. The same inclusion, identity and correction rules apply regardless of political affiliation. Read the declaration.