when buying cocaine actually helps the
government out one day the National
Crime Agency received information that a
tugboat sailing off the coast of
Scotland might be carrying drugs they
sent out a low-flying plane to find it
then a Royal Navy warship and a large
border for ship to intercept it
below deck hidden in a tank they found
3.2 tons of cocaine worth 512 million
pounds it was the biggest ever seizure
of Class A drugs in UK history good news
for the government you might think but
in terms of how we measure the economy
this is actually bad news sales of
illegal drugs like cocaine are countered
towards our GDP or gross domestic
product the main way the government
measures how well the economy is doing
so that tugboats gets it intercepted
meant lower GDP but government's want
GDP to go up what they call economic
growth to calculate GDP we count
everything that's made in the UK - what
we put into making it so if a coffee
shop sells a hundred pounds worth of
cups of coffee but spends 10 pounds on
buying the coffee beans to make it their
contribution to GDP would be 90 pounds
and just like buying coffee buying
cocaine technically helps our economy
look bigger
critics say GDP shouldn't include things
that have a negative impact on society
and also points out it doesn't take into
account our impact on the environment
you