to absenteeism, premature death, property crime and damage, and excluding justice system costs. Conklin (1997: 100) reports the cost of illegal drug use in the U.S. in 1989 at $60 billion a year, a 20% increase over the estimate in 1985. The rise in cost to the state can only be met out of tax revenue, but the burden is not shared equally. Income actually spent on drugs is displaced from purchases that would otherwise have generated sales tax and income tax revenue. Similarly, the substantial profits made by the dealers is not taxed. Thus, the citizens who declare income for tax purposes must pay more to offset the cost of non-capture of drug revenue in their society. As with prostitution, crime related to drug dealing also affects the amenity of a neighbourhood, destroying property values and causing the flight of the middle class to the "safer" suburbs. If the police do intervene, they may alienate law-abiding community members who are stopped and questioned, and only displace the drug dealing indoors, thus making it more resistant to police interventions. Police may also use their power to extract rents from the drug selling community. Further, Sampson (2002) comments that because intensive police enforcement is by its very nature temporary, the impact is often only short-term and dependent on the resiliency of the market and the buyers which has been shown to be strong. Some officers have argued that intensive enforcement shows the community that the police care about the problem; however, some of the unintended effects may, in fact, have the opposite result. For a more general exposition, see arguments for and against drug prohibition. See also Drug-related crime Public Order Act 1986 Victimless crime Sumptuary law Anti-social behaviour order Broken windows theory Moral police Signal crime Islamic religious police Notes References Collins, D.J. & Lapsley, H.M. (1991). Estimating the Economic Costs of Drug Abuse in Australia Canberra: Dept. Of Comm. Health and Services. Conklin, John E. (1997). Criminology. 6th edition. Allyn & Bacon. de Haan, Willem. (1990). The Politics of Redress: Crime, Punishment and Penal Abolition. Boston: Unwin Hyman. Ericsson, Lars O. (1980). "Charges Against Prostitution; An Attempt at a Philosophical Assessment". Ethics 90:335-66. Feinberg, Joel (1984). Harm to Self: The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law. New York: Oxford University Press. Garoupa, Nuno & Klerman, Daniel. (2002). "Optimal Law Enforcement with a Rent-Seeking Government". American Law and Economics Review