What detrimental effect does inductance have on the current in an alternating current circuit?

In inductive circuits the current phase lags behind the voltage phase. The phase difference between current and voltage can mean you can get heavy currents flowing that aren't doing useful work, yet contribute to wasted power if they flow in other parts of the circuit (or even in surrounding metal screens etc) . In some circuits, such as tuned circuits, inductance is an important feature so resistive components have to be avoided there.