$13846 per passenger

According to the NZ Herald that's what Auckland ratepayers (and taxpayers) have already paid for each person expected to use the new trial daily Helensville to Auckland commuter train service. It will be an extension of a single service and carry 65 passengers a day, in addition to those it will pick up on the Waitakere to Auckland section (which would have run anyway).

However, that without a single passenger having been moved, that was just to build the platforms to take the trains. It will be another $400,000 a year in operating costs for the service, around $26 per day per commuter. So you better hope the fare would be that, but you can be sure it wont be. ARC's leftwing Chairman Mike Lee said "he would be most surprised if the Helensville service did not follow the trend of every other recent improvement to the rail network, in becoming over-subscribed very quickly." Well, if you give people something they have only had to pay part of the costs for, that's quite possible. However if you can charge the passengers $35 a day for the privilege (which would cover opex and recover the capital costs), then it will make sense.

So what IS the cost of drugs?

The NZ Herald is reporting a study conducted called the Drug Harm Index. It reports it was "designed by economists to help police decide where drugs do the most harm and enable them to use resources more efficiently."

On the face of it the report claims a $1.3 billion "social" cost for drugs. That, of course raises some big issues:

- How many of those costs are costs of prohibition? If prohibition ended, how many would go up, how many would go down or disappear?
- How many of these costs could be born by those using if the incentives were in place to do so? These wouldn't be "social" costs, they would be internalised. Indeed how many of these costs ARE internal?
- What are the benefits? People spend money on drugs not for nothing, but because they gain value in it. The value is not dissimilar to the value from drinking, eating a dessert, sex or the like. You see people take drugs because they feel good isn't it missing part of the equation to ignore that?

Now I don't think that long term drug use is a particular clever thing to do. It can be highly destructive and damaging, much as consistently high levels of alcohol consumption can be too. However, it is important to consider drugs dispassionately. It's not me to judge what another adult ingests, as long as it doesn't harm anyone else. So let's look at least at some points reported:

- "373,310 people used cannabis, but only 17 per cent of these were frequent users". It may suggest that the bulk of users are getting about their life reasonably well. At least no worse than the regular drinker. However if we enforced the law strictly, that would be equal to the population of Christchurch being in prison. That's what winning the war on drugs would mean.

- "Nearly 23,000 people used crystal methamphetamine (36 per cent of them often)" compared with 81,890 using MDMA and 38,890 using cocaine. Suggests the "P epidemic" isn't quite that, although it is undoubtedly the most destructive of the drugs listed.

- Drug use is related to absences at work, which is hardly surprising. However, this IS a matter between the user and the employer, and if the employer has the legal right to dismiss someone for excessive absences then the issue can be addressed. However, you wouldn't arrest a drug user purely for not turning up at work enough would you?

- 16% of the prison population is occupied by "drug related crimes", although it is unclear whether this is drug crimes per se. $108.7 million per annum to keep them there. However, this isn't a cost of drug use - it is a cost of drug prohibition. Add the $374 million court, community sentence and home detention costs also to drug prohibition, not drug use.

- 2292 patients admitted to hospital for drug related reasons, costing $6.76 million p.a. Hardly noticeable in a health budget of $11 billion p.a. The Ministry of Health says that the annual cost of alcohol related hospitalisations is $74 million p.a. Of course, if drug users had to pay for hospital costs it wouldn't be a social cost anymore.

- 1920 drug related deaths (including associated with homicide and road accidents). That statistic itself sounds like a wide catchment. Does it include people murdered in the criminalised drug sector? Curiously ALAC's website claims in 2000 that 1040 deaths were attributable to alcohol, but 980 were PREVENTED by alcohol, although the deaths were more likely to be premature and the deaths avoided older (presumably the preventive effect of red wine on heart disease and the like). Back to drugs, how many drug related deaths could have been avoided had it been easy to present information on safer use of MDMA and other drugs, for example? How many drug related deaths could have been avoided had drugs not been "fortified" by a range of substances to make them "go a bit further" for dealers - a consequence of prohibition.

- "While stimulants contributed 41 per cent of the total costs, figures showed that in 2006, police and Customs seized 33,480kg of cannabis compared with only 155kg of stimulants." It demonstrates the law enforcement agencies concentrate on the high volume easy catches, not the low volumes harder drugs. What does that say about incentives to target "catching people" rather than harm?

So the story is mixed. Yes drugs undoubtedly cost in productivity, and cost more in less tangible ways socially as their misuse can be highly destructive to motivation, character and attitude to life. However, is that a reason to lock up 1578 people? Are their wider education, cultural and philosophical reasons why this happens?

Yes drugs send people to hospital, but at a fraction of the rate of alcohol. We also don't know whether drugs have any positive health effect - some cancer patients report cannabis soothing their pain. We also don't know what other positive effects they have on people, relieving stress for example. Yes there are sceptics, but I'd like to see someone dispassionately investigating this. The cost of drugs is only half of the equation, what value are there on the benefits? I don't have any idea whether this would be smaller or larger than the costs, but surely we should ask both before coming to a conclusion.

Finally, the cost of the criminal justice system is not a cost of drug use, it is the cost of drug prohibition. That is also worthy of a study. The cost of prohibition includes all of those imprisonment and court costs, and Police costs. It also includes the higher price users pay, and an element of the health costs by reducing quality. Finally, if a cost of drug use is reduced productivity, a cost of prohibition is the cost to individuals of being incarcerated and forever having a drug conviction in their records. The cost in time can be calculated, the cost in lost earnings over life, and reduced opportunities to travel. The benefits would be worth calculating too - what do we save from prohibition?

Now none of this is about developing an economists answer to a question of individual freedom, but it is useful in identifying the consequences of policies and getting some order of magnitude. It is telling in itself that the health costs of drug use are quite low.

Transmission Gully non-announcement?

The Dominion Post today is reporting the rather exagerrated comment that the Transmission Gully boondoggle cargo cult "has passed a crucial hurdle" without actually saying at all what that is.

It isn't resource consents, it doesn't have those.

It isn't funding, it doesn't have that (and the funding earmarked for this project reduces in value every year due to inflation).

It isn't owning the land, that hasn't happened either.

It could be the completion of the investigation phase, but I thought that had happened.

The "government green light" could only mean funding, Transit board approval to proceed to the design phase or some special porkbarrel approval to change the law to bypass the RMA. If it is the "next phase of planning", it is simply design. Don't get too excited.

I do note finally someone has noted that costs don't remain static and it now costs $1.025 billion - for one road (I said $1.04 billion a few month ago). That makes it more expensive than any other road project in the country that us well developed other than the Waterview extension in Auckland, tunnelled under the PM's electorate.

Meanwhile Peter Dunne remains obsessed about it (Wellington needs another outlet, besides the current highway, State Highway 2, the two railways, the airport, the sea, the Akatarawas).

The enthusiasts all want a regional Wellington petrol tax (because you see, the users wont pay the toll necessary to pay for it - which tells you how bad a project it is), and tolls and "some other source" of funding. So if Wellingtonians are worried about petrol prices now, it seems Labour and United Future would increase petrol taxes to help pay for one road, and find other money elsewhere to pay for it OH and have you pay a toll, and demote the current highway (lower speed limits) so you'd have to use Transmission Gully for through traffic.

Nothing like politicians trying to buy the votes of some people by taxing the hell out of everyone else. Remember the extra Wellington petrol tax would also increase GST so 5c/l becomes 5.625c/l, remember also that Wellington region includes Wairarapa - how many people there will use Transmission Gully? How about Upper Hutt residents? How about all those Wellingtonians who DON'T commute by car from Kapiti every day, or DON'T have properties there?

Yep, and will National say it's a bad idea?

UPDATE: Yes I was write, investigations are over and the price is over a billion. The government is saying it has saved $275 million, which is only if you take a saving over the Land Transport NZ index of costs (an inflation that the government is hardly immune from blame over). Of course the "saving" is a nonsense, because the money doesn't exist to pay for it, or hasn't been taken from taxpayers yet. A toll wont come remotely close to being enough to fund it, neither would a 5c/l petrol tax on all Wellington motorists.

The Q&As are a nonsense. The project now has a preferred route, but landowners need to be talked to, property needs purchasing, and detailed design will determine exactly what the costs are likely to be. It's not that significant. The big issue remains funding - and more importantly why should motorists, ratepayers and general taxpayers pay for a road most of them wont use, and which by and large simply delivers property value windfalls to Kapiti residents, as it effectively subsidises car commuting from Kapiti to Wellington - not exactly lowering CO2 emissions is it?

UPDATE: The NZ Herald gets it wrong too. Transmission Gully hasn't "got the go ahead", it has funding for design. Property purchases not complete, no resource consent granted, no funding to built it. Come on, how hard is it to do more than report what politicians say? You could actually do a little research!

Tsvangarai seeks refuge in Dutch Embassy

The Dutch Foreign Minister told CNN "Tsvangirai has indeed asked through the MDC, his party, if the Netherlands would be able to provide him with security in the coming days."

Of course if Tsvangirai were murdered it surely would bring Zimbabwe close to civil war. Another day of violence continues, and South Africa watches on deliberately being impotent and helpless, when Africans are murdered and abused the South African government lets it be.

A tiny tiny challenge for National

Promise to abolish the Families Commission, as Lindsay Mitchell says it is part of the problem.

I didn't exist nine years ago, it doesn't need to exist now. $9 million a year saved, to help slip back into the paypackets of families (and $0.4m in assets to flog off).

Nobody will miss it, except Peter Dunne and he'll be a single MP party (again) after the election, so he shouldn't hold that much weight.

unless you believe the nonsense in its own material. This includes having as a strategic objective "Significant progress has been made towards preventing family violence." fine. How does it contribute to that? It did research into elder abuse, completed a report on statistics of family violence (shouldn't Justice have that?) and started an advertising campaign about it (again shouldn't Justice do that?). It talks about "promoting a change in society’s attitudes and behaviours relating to family violence." Who is this "society"? I don't tolerate it, I know of few who do. Isn't this just crime prevention? According to its own measure it has met that strategic objective - I wonder how many homes suffering under violent abuse have noticed?

So come on John Key, or is that too scary? Is a vote for National that utterly pointless?