The Hidden Cost of Substance Abuse emanated from a need to increase fundraising for the organization. The name comes from a comprehensive 2009 report on the wasted expenses (i.e. our tax dollars) going into “cleaning up the wreckage” of substance abuse issues after the fact (e.g. incarceration) rather than simply paying for prevention and treatment on the front end.
In a painful and comprehensive way the report goes state by state, budget by budget, and line item by line item adding up the numbers that had not previously put together: a reasonable estimate of the real cost of the so-called war on drugs from a local perspective.
And then they do this at the federal level.
The problem is that page after page of graphs with numbers aren’t exciting―they don’t motivate action (like, for instance, donating to a non-profit working with criminal justice-involved clients). See the page for the state of Iowa below (pie charts in original):
The work to obtain the above data (for all 50 states) was a massive and appreciated undertaking. However, with a little work I was able to transition those numbers into the following graphic:
This was a more satisfying graphic that viscerally grabs the attention of politician and citizen alike―why do we choose to spend our money in this way?
I’ve pulled a selection of the other slides from the presentation as well. We additionally took an anecdote about plane crashes and turned it into the framework for how we should be thinking about overdoses deaths from substance abuse.
This was aimed at obtaining additional funding for substance abuse treatment from the local government and non-profits and was ultimately successful both individually and as part of a larger campaign.
These two powerful concepts: Where we spend our money (dollar) and how big the problem really is (planes) created an effective visual portrayal that shook the people receiving the pitch in the best kind of way.
You can download the whole deck below.