Illicit Drug Market and its possible regulation
The project aims at finding an economic solution to the problem of identifying the the best regulatory body to act against the illegal economy through:
- giving a better evidence of the influence of the illicit drug industry on the GDP, on families' savings and on the economy's growth ratio (a recent and exclusive theoretical achievement of the group).
- giving a better evidence of the economic aspects of drug use
- investigating petty-crime and drug selling in their real scale. Drug related mortality should be more strongly highlighted.
- recommending a special law for establishing the principle of treatment and rehabilitation instead of imprisoning users.
In 2009 they conducted two pilot surveys in secondary schools (1200 respondents) and therapeutic communities (100 respondents). The surveys have shown that families are the most important source of funding both at the beginning of drug use and during the years of addiction. Hence, they propose support schemes that target entire families, and not individual users.