Health, 10 million people aged 12 or older were reported driving under the influence during the year prior to being surveyed. Marijuana is the drug most often found in the blood of drivers involved in crashes. Further drug-related costs can be imposed on society when traffickers and users involved in trading a drug impose negative externalities on unrelated third-parties i.e. crime, anti-social behaviour, violence and noise pollution. This could lead to major disruption to residents and families in the community reducing their overall quality of life; in fact one study carried out in Waltham Forest, London, reported that 53% of those surveyed said their main concern about quality of life was related to crime levels involving drugs. Drug abuse occurs most frequently amongst young people in the 15-35 age group, particularly between 18-25 years. Therefore it includes those who have entered or who are due to enter the workforce. As obvious as it seems consumption of illicit drugs limits chances of entry or more significantly remaining in the workforce; with this the creation of a vicious cycle with frustration caused by failure to find/keep a job, which can lead to further drug consumption. In addition, a further cost is the loss of labour productivity when under the influence. Such productivity losses are shown by calculating the difference between work that would be expected to have been done if not for the effects of the drugs and work achieved with the drug abuse. The most concerning study carried out is related to the loss in productivity in the United States whereby, the estimated cost of labour non- participation as a result of drug consumption was $120 billion in 2011 (0.9% of GDP), which amounted to 62% of all drug-related costs. Also, drug-taking employees in the United States have been found to be absent, on average, three times more often than non-drug-taking employees which has huge negative impact on productivity on a long term basis.
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J AMES P EARCE
Are Football Transfer Fees Still Justified?
The prices of footballers around the world and especially in the UK have been increasing at astronomical rates. From Alan Shearer’s £15m world record transfer from Blackburn Rovers to Newcastle United in 1996, to Andriy Shevchenko’s £30m transfer from AC Milan to Chelsea in 2006, there has been a steady progression in the increase of fees. However just last year Paul Pogba was purchased by Manchester United for £89m and the deemed market price for a “good” player is now around the £30 million mark. So why have the prices risen so quickly in recent times?
The origin of this rapid increase of price in the last couple of years is due to new TV rights deals. A deal was struck in 2016 of around £4.2bn for Sky and £960m for BT. The total of £5.14bn for TV Rights has led to each individual club in the Premier League receiving around £100m per year. The massive increase in income allows the clubs to spend more, which combined with relatively constant running costs, has increased the demand for high quality footballers. As the supply of footballers is relatively constant, this then means that the price of all players is increasing. Smaller clubs that previously were unable to afford some high quality players are now able to foray into this transfer market as well. This
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