In May 1994 the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse (CCSA) organised an international symposium in Banff, Canada, to discuss the issues involved in estimating the social and economic costs of substance abuse, and to seek a consensus on the most appropriate model. The purpose of the meeting was to explore the feasibility of establishing an internationally acceptable common method for estimating the costs of substance abuse. A working group was formed to explore the potential for developing guidelines on estimating the economic costs of substance abuse, consisting of [Eric Single], David Collins, Brian Easton, Rick Harwood, Helen Lapsley and Alan Maynard. These guidelines were finalised at a second International Symposium held in Montebello, Quebec, in 1996.

In June 2000, the Third International Symposium on Estimating the Social and Economic Costs of Substance Abuse was held in Banff. This meeting focused on ongoing methodological issues and the expansion of cost estimation methods to developing economies.This led to a second edition of the guidelines, authored by myself, David Collins, Brian Easton, Rick Harwood, Helen Lapsley, Pierre Kopp (France) and Ernesto Wilson (Colombia) and published by the World Health Organisation after extensive review in 2004 [2]. A new set of guidelines for estimating the avoidable costs of substance abuse has since been developed by yet another working group led by David Collins and Helen Lapsley [3]. These guidelines are now available from Health Canada.