The overall economic cost of substance use in Canada in 2020 was $49.1 billon,
which is about $1,291 for each person in the country.
More than 62% of the total costs of substance were related to two legal substances –
alcohol and tobacco.
Opioid use cost $7.1 billion – the highest of any year examined. Nearly 75% of these costs
were related to lost productivity and, more specifically, people dying at a young age from
opioid use.
The four substances associated with the largest costs were (in order):
- Alcohol: $19.7 billion or 40.1% of the total costs,
- Tobacco: $11.2 billion or 22.7% of the total costs,
- Opioids: $7.1 billion or 14.4% of the total costs and
- Cocaine: $4.2 billion or 8.5% of the total costs.
The costs of substance use were also classified into four categories:
Deaths Attributable to Substance Use
Substance use was responsible for 73,994 deaths in 2020 – the equivalent of more than 200 lives lost each day.
- Tobacco use was responsible for nearly two in three lives lost (46,366 deaths).
- Alcohol and opioid use led to far fewer deaths than tobacco (17,098 and 6,491 deaths, respectively).
- More than twice as many people in Canada died of opioid or other central nervous system stimulant use in 2020 as did in 2007. This increase was driven by an acceleration in unintentional poisonings caused by an increasingly toxic unregulated drug supply.
Substance Use Costs in Canada Trends 2007–2020
How substance use costs in Canada changed between 2007 and 2020, the latest year that data is available:
- Overall substance use costs rose from $38.0 billion to $49.1 billion, a nearly 30% increase.
- The per-person cost of substance use increased 11.8%, from $1,154 in 2007 to $1,291 in 2020.
- Although overall per-person costs increased, trends varied significantly among the
substances assessed. The three substances for which per-person costs increased the most were
(in order):
- Stimulants (including amphetamines, such as methamphetamine but excluding cocaine) increased 71.8%, from $46 to $80;
- Opioids increased 66.4%, from $112 to $186; and
- Alcohol increased 21.3%, from $427 to $518.
- The per-person cost of cannabis increased 5.2%. from $60 to $63
- Specifically, per-person costs increased 15.8% between 2007 and 2018 and decreased 9.1% between 2018 and 2020 following legalization of its recreational use. The decrease over the last three years was due to reduced criminal justice costs.
- The per-person cost of tobacco use decreased by almost 20%, from $365 to $293. The decline is largely a result of fewer hospitalizations and deaths related to tobacco use.