“Criminals” make €48 a second thanks to Cannabis prohibition

Every second in Ireland €48 is spent on cannabis meaning over €1.5Billion Euros is going to the black market. Below I explain how I came to the conclusion and have included some live counters showing the missed revenue since the start of this year.

The most recently available data on Irelands Cannabis consumers shows that 17% of people over the age of 15 had used cannabis in some form in the 12months prior to the survey.

Results of Eurobarometer Survey

Using the data gathered during the 2022 Census in Ireland, it found that Irelands population was 5,123,536. Of this number people over the age of 15 make up over 78% of the population but for this calculation I rounded it down to 75% for a more conservative figure.

75% of 5.123536 = 3.842652 million people aged 15+

Then using the 17% from the survey and again rounding down to 15% for a more conservative estimate.

15% of 3.842652 = 0.576398 million people 15+ who consumed cannabis 12months prior to the survey.

Meaning in Ireland we potentially have 576,398 people 15+ who use cannabis in some form.

If those people were to spend on average €50 a week on their cannabis from an illegal source then that would see €1.5 Billion going to the black-market annually.

Breaking this figure down you find, weekly the black-market could generate €28.9million, thats €4.1million a day, €171,547 an hour, €2,859 per minute or finally €48 a second.

If that’s not bad enough then you have to consider the amount of money Ireland spends on enforcing this War on Drugs. Natalie O Regan over on the Cannabis Review estimated that Ireland spends €240 Million on our failed drug policies. Breaking this figure down we can say that €7.63 is being spent on failed drug policies, every second, in Ireland.

I hope at some point this year I’ll be coming on here to stop these counters because Ireland’s drug policy shifted from a criminal justice approach, to a health led approach with a regulated drug supply.