Ill-proportioned drug budget

Drug related spendings in Hungary constitute a smaller proportion of the state budget than in many other EU countries. Most of this money is spent on law enforcement.

Drug related spendings in Hungary constitute a smaller proportion of the state budget than in many other EU countries. Most of this money is spent on law enforcement.
 

The Parliamentary Committee on Drug Affairs held its third meeting on 12 September in the House of Representatives in Budapest. The members of the Committee – MPs and experts – discussed the report of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour on drug related social spendings. The government plans to cut down the drug budget for next year – but ministry officials claimed it means only a slight reduction, from 1,125,000,000 HUF to 1,000,000 HUF and it will not reduce the money available for drug prevention, treatment and harm reduction programs. Péter Portörő, head of the Drug Coordination Unit of the Ministry, presented a study on drug related social spendings, conducted by the National Focal Point of the EMCDDA in 2006. According to the study Hungary spends 10 billion HUF (43,5 Million EUR) for implementing its national drug policy – 0,11 percent of its annual public spendings. Most of this budget is spent on law enforcement (8 Billion HUF), only 23 percent (2,4 Billion) is spent on research, prevention, treatment and harm reduction all together. This is an ill-proportioned budget in European comparison for two reasons. First, most Western-European countries where data is available spend a bigger proportion on demand reduction than Hungary. Finland for example spends 76 percent of its national drug budget on social and health care. Only some EU member states spend that much on law enforcment, like the Netherlands, which is an important gateway for international drug trafficking, not like Hungary. But there is another difference between the Netherlands and Hungary: while in Hungary more than 80 percent of drug offenders are arrested because of simple possession for personal use, the Netherlands focuses its law enforcement efforts on large scale trafficking.   

Drug related public spendings in some EU member states