A successful economy is important to the well-being of every person in this country, and although most people have no trouble understanding heroin’s effects on the user, many never think about its impact on the economy. There have been many studies in reference to the economic costs of illegal drug use overall, but not many that pertains to the costs of just heroin. However, the last study done on the economic costs of heroin was in 1996. The authors of the article “The economic costs of heroin addiction in the United States,” Tami L. Mark, George E. Woody, Tim Juday, and Herbert D. Kleber (2001) acknowledged that “the cost of heroin addiction in the United States was US$ 21.9 billion in 1996… [P]roductivity losses accounted for approximately US$11.5 billion (53%), criminal activities US$5.2 billion (24%), medical care US$5.0 billion, and social welfare US$0.1 billion (0.5%)”…