Penk ChrisClause 2 CommencementCHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you Madam Chair for the opportunity to speak to the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill particularly clause 2 of course the commencement. I'd like to highlight in the first instance that of course as drafted currently the Act is to come into force the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent. In legislative terms this is of course immediately anon forthwith etc. So my question to the Minister will be around the time frame and in particular whether more time might be needed to understand the effects of this bill for those who will be affected by its provisions.Just to reflect briefly on the debate about whether drugs are more so a justice issue or a health issue I think it goes without saying that at least to some extent they are both. That really leads into the first of my points in relation to the fact that this is a very significant change and accordingly sufficient time should be taken by this House and actually more to the point the entire nation to understand its effects before it will become the law of the land.So I'd like to make five points in arguing that a greater period of time is needed and I'd certainly look forward to the Minister's comment if he's prepared to provide that on those points. The first is the significance of the change and I'll go through these each in a bit more detail; the second being the complexity of the issues at stake from the perspective of the health issues that we will be considering in this legislation; the third is the nature of the prohibition; the fourth is the potential for uncertainty in terms of the way that the definitions of the bill are put together; and the fifth and final the legislative history and an argument that I'll get to regarding the fact that there has been a lot of back and forth if I can put it like that in terms of the way that this piece of legislation has reached us in this committee tonight.So the first of those five points is the significance of the change. I think it's probably well accepted on all sides of this Chamber and indeed on all sides of the debate that it is a very serious topic and there has been considerable public interest in it for some time. That in itself I would argue is a reason for allowing the issue to reside in the public consciousness in terms of understanding the change that will be made and it seems that the change will be made by passage of this legislation before as I say it has time to be effective and therefore begin to impact on the legal and other rights of New Zealanders.My second point goes to the complexity of the health issues involved and it's no trivial matter of course to understand for example what it means to have a CBD product". The particular definition relates to another clause in the bill so of course I won't go into that as a matter of substance but just to note that there are complex issues that are thrashed out in this bill and more than one day following the Royal assent I think would be appropriate for New Zealanders to be able to get a good handle on that.The third is the nature of the prohibition. So I refer to the fact that the mechanism is effectively immunity from prosecution as opposed to some other kind of exemption or some other carve-out in the law. I think that even tonight the debate that we've had in this committee even in these early stages reflects the fact that that's a matter of some complexity for which understanding and therefore time to understand would be helpful.My fourth point relates to uncertainty or at least as I say the potential for uncertainty. That goes to issues of definition where we talk later about for example—and again I won't dwell on it at this stage—a pipe or another utensil and then in brackets we've got the fact that that's not a needle or syringe by definition. So it's just the ability for people whether health professionals those in need from a health perspective or others who might contemplate their rights under this bill to get their head around what these definitions are and what that means in terms of what they're able to do. So that's my argument as to timing as far as uncertainty is concerned.Fifth and final is the legislative history. We've had a member's bill in the name of Chlöe Swarbrick who of course is contributing to the current debate. We've now got this bill presented on behalf of the Government by the health Minister. We've got another member's bill that's being proposed by Dr Shane Reti—not currently on the Table of course—and various Supplementary Order Papers in relation to this. So again a lot of things for people to consider and understand and more time I think is needed therefore."