Report: The Most Affordable Place To Go On A Bender Is Luxembourg

When it's not covering international commodities markets or evaluating bonds trends, Bloomberg turns its economic eye toward drugs, booze, and cigarettes. The business news site annually releases its Global Vice Index, a comparative evaluation of "the share of income needed to maintain a broad weekly habit of cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, amphetamines, cocaine, and opioids across more than 100 countries." This year's results? It's cheapest to get fucked up in Luxembourg.

Luxembourg—a European country that sounds like it would produce a lot of competitive cyclists—is a small forested nation scrunched between Belgium, Germany, and France. While the cost of a theoretical vice basket rose nearly $200 in the U.S. last year—to about 54 percent of average weekly wages—the same debauchery supplies will set you back less than 10 percent of the weekly wage in Luxembourg. That's because not only is the sum cost of those supply relatively low, but Luxembourg's average weekly wage is the world's highest. So, theoretically, if you're interested in these sorts of activities, you should get a cushy job in Luxembourg—which you would promptly lose due to massive cocaine use. (Unrelated, the national dish there is smoked pork collar, which sounds delightful.)

Other countries with pricey drug-and-booze rates include Japan, New Zealand, and Australia, where a steady weekly habit would cost a person more than $1,000. (Apparently, it's expensive to get trashed on islands in the Eastern hemisphere.) Countries where the habit is relatively cheap include Ghana, Congo, Colombia, South Africa, and Guatemala. Prices are influenced by the availability of online drug sales, individual countries' drug laws, and the rise of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. To read more about Bloomberg's methodology, read the full report here.