America’s illegal drug market is huge. The country spent $109 billion in 2010 on illicit marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin, according to new (and very rough) estimates from the RAND Corp. prepared for the White House.
To put that number in perspective: It’s more than we spend at furniture stores ($90 billion) or electronics and appliance retailers ($101 billion) annually, according to U.S. Census data. It’s more than one-fifth of what we spend eating out each year, and it dwarfs the $21 billion we drop at bars.
