DRUG OF CHOICE

Police, hospital emergency workers and many experts in the alcohol and drug field would agree that the drug that causes the most harm in New Zealand is alcohol (“What’s your poison?”, November 23). About 1000 New Zealanders a year die as a direct result of drinking alcohol, and hospital emergency departments estimate that half of their weekend work involves alcohol misuse.

Not all drugs have the same risk factors or the same impact on an individual and their ability to be a positive and contributing member of society. Drug usage should be seen through the same lens as alcohol – a personal choice that can cause harm, but can also be used and enjoyed safely.

Ray Calver (Grey Lynn, Auckland)

23) are the same breed of brave people who fought for women to have the vote, for an end to racial segregation and for LGBTQ+ rights in an era when those views were considered radical. In fact, at one time it was considered radical for women to have ideas at all.

She wonders whether these protesters would take up arms to “fight for freedom” should the situation call for it. I see each protest as its own fight for freedom. If you wish young people would sit down, shut up and not have any opinions, nor take advantage of a university education, then perhaps fascism is for you. I believe our opinionated youth would be the first to stand up against any fascist insurgency.

Furthermore, even when we do not agree, we should defend each other’s right to express our opinions. That is what I believe the November 2 Editorial was saying. Eleanor Heal (New Plymouth)

So, Chlöe Swarbrick is in trouble with Margaret Arthur

for having an opinion. The young, who in future will be keeping this country functioning, are standing and fighting for the planet. Now, that’s worth a fight.

Yes, we older people went to war against fascism. But that was 80 years ago, and things have changed a bit since then. AK Hammond (Cambridge)

In April 2013, the Politics column looked at the future of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter, with the writer begging for an economist to come forward to explain the costs of keeping the smelter in operation. The only stipulations were that the economist not have an axe to grind and not be called “Gareth”. I wrote a letter at some length that was published in the following week’s Listener.

My bottom line was that the implied subsidy embodied in the smelter’s below-opportunity-cost payments for our electricity was – conservatively – about $100,000 for every job kept in Southland every year. Basically, New Zealanders were and are paying the wages of those people on behalf of foreign-owned smelter company Rio Tinto. That’s not what we do for any other company or industry, with the partial exception of Peter Jackson’s movie company.

Politics returned to the topic on November 9, the writer saying that if the smelter shut down, an “alternative mass employment scheme for the region would practically pay for itself”, which is pretty much consistent with the job-cost estimate I came up with.

So, let’s get on with it. The

subsidy is just going to get bigger and bigger as the value of hydro electricity for other uses increases, in line with two big trends: continued population growth (bad news), and a continuing transition to non-polluting renewable energy sources (good news).

In fairness to Rio Tinto, the Government should prepare a five-year schedule showing how it expects the smelter’s power bill to increase towards eventual full-opportunity-cost pricing. Unless Rio Tinto has been massively conning us about the viability of the smelter – not impossible, but unlikely – it will respond by announcing its own planned departure from Tiwai Point.

When it does, the Government should swing into action, working with Southland businesses and regional authorities on a transition plan, though this, in my view, need not amount to a mass employment scheme if we get on to it soon enough.

Tim Hazledine

Professor of economics, University of Auckland