Scott Lynda: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee Third Reading 
Scott Lynda: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:626;Page:21494] 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 This part of the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) deals with search and seizure. It also deals with the ability of our police to be able to do their jobs at the border. We totally support Part 2. Our police and our border control people try to do a very good job there. They were very hamstrung by the fact that there was no ability to do anything about someone who turned up in New Zealand having come from Asia or other places overseas with case after case full of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine as a precursor drug for the manufacture of P. Obviously if a case is opened and is found to be stuffed full of those pills we know that the pills are not for regular use. But there was no legislation to prevent that from happening. The National Party totally supports being able to use the expeditious scheduling procedure set up by Wyatt Creech to enable those precursor substances to be put into the Misuse of Drugs Act and to allow the police to then prosecute those who act to bring those sorts of precursor substances into New Zealand. 
The people who are bringing the precursor substances in are doing it simply and utterly so that they can manufacture P. P has caused a huge amount of harm in our society. I remember when that first became an issue. A friend of mine who has since died an older man who gave a great deal of community service came to see me one day because he was part of Victim Support. He told me he could not believe what he was seeing. He was seeing men with good jobs who had always been substantial members of the community but who had just taken one of the party drugs because they were out somewhere and someone had offered it to them and they had gone completely off their heads. They had attacked taxi-drivers gone home and attacked their wives and been involved in a huge number of violent episodes. He told me those people had ruined their lives just through taking one pill. 
When pseudoephedrine and ephedrine have become methamphetamine they increase the neurotransmitters in the brain and sometimes that makes people go absolutely crazy. Some horrendously violent crimes have been committed in this country by people who have been high on P. The other day a grandma came into my constituency clinic to talk to me about her grandson who is 15 and is addicted to P. She was bringing her daughter to come and talk to me too but the daughter was at home dealing with the police because the young man had threatened to kill his two sisters. They took it very seriously—and so they should—because the episodes of violent crime and the psychosis that we are seeing with methamphetamine usage are a very serious issue for New Zealand indeed and our young people need to realise the substantial risk involved. But it is not just young people who are affected. As my friend Alan said to me some older people in their 30s and 40s who have been really good and substantial members of the community have also been drawn into taking party pills or methamphetamine as a one-off and are having severe episodes that have absolutely ruined their lives. We need to do everything we can to stop the people in this country who for the sake of making a lot of money engage in producing those drugs of abuse. National supports doing something about that. 
I listened to some of the speeches especially the ones given by United Future members previously. I do not think they understand the issue. We totally support doing what we can to control any drug that the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs says has a high degree of harm. The issue is the process that is being used to regulate drugs of low harm which is the classification the expert advisory committee gave to benzylpiperazine. The Health Committee had a huge amount of debate on how to do that.