So when i'm correct on something then move on and attack me on other items. The cost of managing the Narcotics Commission wouldn't be excessive nor would ramping up the clinics be expensive either.
The clinics and hospitals are already in place. Protocols for opiate like substances exist. Expanding the staff to manage a greater intatke wouldn't be excessive. We're not talking about a massive amount of people. for godsake only 1.4% have taken heroin for example and of that only 0.02% are actively using.
For meth, cocaine and other substances the clinics would primarily managing
dysfunctional people.
Doctors, lawyers and other stick up their ass types could drive in and get their legal drugs on registering for the program. I don't care if you think your too good or if you believe that you don't have a problem. IF you want cheap and very clean substances then go ahead. Of course you could keep buying it on the black market but with the vast bulk of users flocking to the clinic model this would be enough to destroy the economies of scale.
Cuba is not exactly the best example of World Class Healthcare system. My business partner actually just got back from a trip there this week and sprained his ankle, needing to go to a local hospital. Their healthcare system is universal sure, that is kind of the building block of a communist society, but it is basic. Good luck getting an MRI or any other high tech treatment there. They have plenty of doctors but low resources. Perhaps the only thing going for it is being isolated from the rest of the world, there are fewer limitations on experimental techniques that might otherwise be frowned upon by conservative Western systems.
As you said Cuba's barrier to high-tech health has nothing to do with the quality of its medical sector and everything to do with bullshit American politics. Cuba could have MRI's if it wasn't for the Americans.
The cost of medical training does not stop once you graduate. Over the past 20 years I have spent ten fold as much on courses just to keep my skills current than I did getting my degree. Only last year I completed a course in Colombia that cost me over $30 000. If I was to do the same course in Australia it would have cost cost closer to $50 000. And that's with the previous Labor government going into the last election on a platform of limiting what professionals can claim a year on continuing education to $3000.
Yep and you're getting ripped off big time. Cuba trains its doctors for 1/10th of the cost of a western country. Like China medicine doesn't have to cost literally an arm and a leg. You keep missing my point though. The AMA and specialist colleges have massive barriers to entry and Kafkaesque like requirements in order to allow doctors to charge massive wages.
This artificially constrains supply resulting in a system utterly stressed. For example I've been in and out of hospitals all week (little chugs was born on Tuesday). We saw the OB for all of 2 minutes during the delivery. We had an anaesthesiologist for about 20 minutes for the epidural. Yet they probably billed significant fees for that time notwithstanding the fact that 90% of all the care and decision were made by senior nurses, who's education cost far less and yet they deliver the vast bulk of the outcomes.
Public health is expensive but it isn't because of obscene wages. Start opening the hospitals to more drug misadventures and your feeble economic summery of savings will disappear to vapour.
Firstly yes wages in public health are obscene, especially for doctors. I'd love to see the data that says otherwise.
I manage a large workforce/FTE. I know exactly how much wages cost, they make up a big part of the cost to serve. How would medicine be any different?
That said I'll be more then happy to provide detail re my "feeble economic" summary. I've been building some more professional diagrams and graphs to accompany my argument.
If you want to look at the economics from a different track then imagine the amount of money that won't flow through society if drugs were solely controlled by the government and taxed. At present a drug King pin may import a kilo at $x and people complain that they are not paying tax on this huge profit. However the money still filters down through the community. The kingpin will spend this profit on local businesses as well as local products. If he launders it well enough almost all of it remains in our economy. Unlike the government though that isn't where the money stops. Each person under him will cut and on sell with a profit, once again spending their gains in the community. Society may not get the direct gains in taxation that might occur with a government regulated system, but if you multiply each step of the black market I argue that in fact more money is filtered through our community for the same kilo than can be achieved through regulation and taxation. It might not pay for new buses but it will put money in the pockets directly for the common man to pay for his bus ride. And perhaps a beer and steak sandwich for lunch.
In mid-September 2013, research by the Australian Bureau of Statistics valued the contribution of the illicit drugs market to the Australian economy at A$6 billion, while tax avoidance is responsible for an additional A$20 billion. The same research also recorded a fall of 19 per cent between 2008 and 2013 due to a reduction in the sales of heroin and cannabis.[36]
There is no trickle down happening. Your feeble contention isn't based anything but a fantasy you've cocked.
In FY12 about 544 of heroin was sized. If this had made it to the streets it would have sold for apporx $326 million retail. Had heroin been legal then those users would have spent a fraction of that sum buying it from a clinic.
The drug dealers for the most part do not spend hundreds of millions.
And I should know. My old boss, was a major cocaine trafficker. She was found with a very large sum of money in her car and arrested (I believe she is doing time). Her partner had a large array of firearms and they had a large mansion.
In the transcripts for the court case she berated her boyfriend for spending/flashing the profits all around town saying that he needed to play it far quieter and cooler. Of all the major drug dealers I've know, bar this one I've mentioned, they were all very modest and careful about how to keep the money hidden/washed. One gang a friend worked for were very careful about training their on wage staff (he was paid about $30 an hour plus heroin). He was given counter-surveillance training and a constant supply of vehicles. They washed the cash via the casino and were very careful to make sure none of it was spent in Sydney.
Apart from lunch and the cars the gang weren't spending that much with local businesses, nor was my old boss for that matter.
In summary we shouldn't cry for drug dealers and their loss to the economy if drugs were made legal. I suspect though that
respectable junkies in the legal and medicine fraternities have very high end hook ups and thus don't worry about quality and price. The idea of being in a $1,000 suit, going to some dingy clinic in their BMWs and lining up with Wazza from Cabra is far scarier a proposition. See you don't care because your drugs are already clean. As long as you have good quality drugs fuck the common men eh.
I guess this is why your a conservative. As i said before if it doesn't profit you directly, make oodles of money that fill your pocket and if that something is for the greater good of all people in our country then there is little chance you'll agree to it.
NB: and this is the case I've seen with alot of bluelighters. the quality of gear and stories i've heard suggests that most bluelighters have quality connections. You don't care about legalisation because you don't need it. You all know that Law Enforcement are utterly weak and feeble if you take the right precautions.
That's why legalisation threads don't get much tractions. You people can't give a fuck about the tens of thousands of drug users out there.
