Hague Kevin: Psychoactive Substances Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHague Kevin: Psychoactive Substances Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 09 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:11821. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KEVIN HAGUE (Green):In relation to Part 2 of the Psychoactive Substances Bill I spoke about the congruence we were seeking between the ways that we dealt with different sorts of psychoactive or recreational substances and Part 3 indeed provides much of the machinery for the regulation. It introduces the very very important principle that the regulation is proportional to the harm which is very important and it covers off those bases that we have discussed in this Chamber in relation to alcohol—location of outlets sponsorship advertising labelling and so on. It stops short of introducing a tax on these products but only for the reason that it was not at this point possible to determine what level such a tax should have. We want to come back to that in the very near future. This is the part of the bill that actually provides those tools that again we hope will lead to greater congruence.I want to give most of my time however to this issue of possession. Paul Hutchison indicated that the National MPs decided to vote to support a possession charge after the evidence given by a couple of police officers to the Health Committee. There was an intriguing gap of some months between the police officers doing that and the National MPs changing their position to support such a possession charge. Indeed I draw the Committee’s attention to the Green minority view on the bill which makes no mention of the clause 63 issue and the possession charge and that is because up until that point there was no possession charge in the bill. That was introduced at the very last moment by the Government MPs.Mr Lees-Galloway has a Supplementary Order Paper that the Green Party will be very pleased to support Supplementary Order Paper 267. We think that as he has said the existence of this charge does not contribute to the purpose of the bill. It does not in any way assist harm minimisation or the promotion of the health of the people who use these psychoactive substances. The existence of possession charges under the Misuse of Drugs Act has not contributed to any kind of reduction in consumption or addiction nor any kind of increase in the use of treatment services by people who use those drugs. There is no evidence to suggest that it would be any different in relation to psychoactive substances. So that is point one.The second point is as Mr Lees-Galloway has pointed out that infringement offences are intended to follow the actual infringement by an immediate penalty—an immediate minor penalty. That is pretty much never going to be possible in the case of clause 63 because at the very least the substance that person A who is pulled over by the police searched and found to have a substance on them—the police will not know what that substance is. They will not know unless and until that substance is tested. When it is tested in most cases I think it is pretty clear that that substance will turn out to be an approved substance because once we have a legalised supply of some psychoactive substances with low risk actually that is going to tend to be what most people have. In most cases that is what will tend to be the case. So a person will have been deprived of their legally acquired and possessed substance for a period of some months before getting it returned in most cases.There will be other cases where the person is found to be carrying a substance that is not an approved psychoactive substance but the point that I want to make to the Committee is this: substances that are not approved psychoactive substances still actually constitute two categories of things. The first of those categories is psychoactive substances for which an application has been made for approval and has been declined. It is pretty clear in that case that we are dealing with a psychoactive substance that has not been approved and I think everyone would say it is probably not legitimate for that substance to continue to be in someone’s possession. There is no legal way they could have acquired it.But there will be other substances. If I have a powder or some pills and those turn out not to be of a substance that has ever been subject to an application then first of all we do not know whether it is a psychoactive substance or not. What that means is that the police are suddenly in a position of needing to make an assessment of whether or not my powder or my pills are a psychoactive substance when according to clause 9 of this bill whether or not something is a psychoactive substance is determined in fact by the authority. They will not have done so. So what we arrive at is an absolute mess—an absolute mess in which the police cannot possibly make sensible decisions and we cannot know from this bill what ought to happen to the person who possessed that or to the substance that they possessed because very likely the substance they possessed was possessed entirely lawfully. So there is a really fundamental flaw with clause 63. This business actually of determining whether or not something is a psychoactive substance also applies to clause 46 and it is in my view a fatal flaw with this bill.I want to just very briefly touch on clause 46 as well just to highlight the point made in our minority view which is that although very reluctantly we have come to support the inclusion of that clause in the bill we do so with some fear that that clause may in fact be used to harass in particular young people from particular minority groups. That would be a most unfortunate consequence which certainly the Green Party will be monitoring and will be looking for in the review of the bill. Thank you.The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 277 in the name of the Hon Todd McClay to the proposed amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 268 in his name to Part 3 be agreed to.Amendments to the amendments agreed to.The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 268 as amended in the name of the Hon Todd McClay to Part 3 be agreed to.Amendments as amended agreed to.The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 267 in the name of Iain Lees-Galloway to Part 3 be agreed to.