Wall Louisa: Psychoactive Substances Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWall Louisa: Psychoactive Substances Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 09 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:11786. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa):It is my pleasure as a member of the Health Committee to speak on Part 1 of the Psychoactive Substances Bill. To begin I want to communicate my interpretation of the process that happened within our select committee. I think that really there has to be an acknowledgment that the chair did seek some advice. He received some advice and the select committee had a vote. It is fair to say that all of us from the Opposition wanted to hear from submitters who were particularly interested in the relevance to animals of this piece of legislation. I know about the integrity that the chair has and I too want to acknowledge the working relationship we have had on this bill and agree that that process took place and that it was in fact the National members of the committee who then decided that we would not hear submissions.I think that has been a flaw in this process but other than that what we have been through as a committee has been robust. We have allowed all sectors of society that have a particular interest in this bill to have their say. That is one aspect of this bill that I think if we reflect upon it and if we could do it again we probably would have allowed them the opportunity to formally be part of the select committee process.What we have done as a group of parliamentarians is acknowledge what New Zealanders have known for a long time—that the unregulated use of these psychoactive substances has particularly influenced negatively on many sectors of our community particularly the young members of our community. So I am really keen like many of us for this bill to be passed.I want to take the opportunity to commend the Associate Minister of Health for his new role. I have seen him actively engaging particularly with his dairy owners with the police and with health officials. I think the critical challenge once this piece of legislation goes through is to make sure that the police the ministry and everybody involved in the administration of this piece of legislation are ready to hit the streets running. Obviously like many of us I have been very active in my community because for me the purpose of this piece of legislation is to regulate and to go through a process of deeming some substances safe. What I would like to state for the record is that we have basically treated these low-risk psychoactive substances as alcohol or tobacco. We have said as a Parliament that these substances are akin to alcohol and tobacco. We did not want to differentiate particularly for young people—to encourage them that this was a better substance for them to take—but I think that the intention of all of us is to make sure that we protect the community and that we provide the tools for our communities so that they can decide whether or not and where they want these substances to be sold.I want to focus very much on clause 11 which establishes the Psychoactive Substances Expert Advisory Committee and to note the expertise around that committee. We will have a pharmacologist we will have a toxicologist and we will have somebody with neuroscience expertise medical expertise and anything that we deem or they deem to be relevant—maybe addiction expertise is something that we think is relevant.What I really wanted to highlight in the formation of this expert advisory committee is one of their mandates when we look at the risks to public health. For me it is the ongoing I guess assessment about some of these products that are going to go through the testing regime. They will be deemed safe—but actually are they? That is one aspect of this piece of legislation that I would like to highlight because we did specifically talk about the requirement within emergency departments for medical experts to categorise an incident but also to look at whether or not we could be very specific about the actual psychoactive substance that had been consumed. When this bill goes through I think all of us know that it is not the end of psychoactive substances; it is really the beginning. What we are all concerned about is making sure that this piece of legislation is fit for purpose and that purpose is to protect the community and particularly the young people of New Zealand.I am also incredibly interested in the relevance and the appeal of certain products to vulnerable populations. I know that historically for example Māori males have been overrepresented in the use of “PZP” I think or benzylpiperazine (BZP)—somebody can correct me if I have got the terminology wrong—but obviously if these substances are being used by a specific group of people in our society I hope that there will be an ability to identify who these people are and ensure that they get the help where it is needed.One of the other things I wanted to clarify is in clause 9 “Meaning of psychoactive substance” and I am going to be very interested in Kevin Hague’s use of that definition. Essentially what we have said is that a psychoactive substance is a substance that induces a psychoactive effect. We said it was not a food and it was not a herbal product. I guess the relevance of that definition will be interesting when we do look at clause 63. The committee initially chose collectively to delete it and then again the National members of the Health Committee thought that it should be reintroduced in spite of the overwhelming evidence particularly from the police that said this was going to be incredibly difficult to administer because of the need to test the particular product and the long time frame between testing it and then laying an offence against those over 18. My colleague Iain Lees-Galloway will speak to that specifically because it is something that he has proposed a Supplementary Order Paper to address.I would like to also contribute to the whole discussion around animal testing. I think as a select committee we have to acknowledge that there was nothing said about animal testing in the beginning and that there has been really good collaborative movement towards creating a piece of legislation that will ensure that if other tests exist we will not in fact test any of these products on animals. But I think the fundamental question is really about the dignity and ability for us to not put any animals at harm in testing these products. If they are in fact low risk we do have to question why we would have to test products on animals in the first place and I think my colleague Kevin Hague has been very clear about outlining what those alternatives are.So we in the Labour Party have moved. We have moved because as I highlighted before there was a flaw in the select committee process. If we had been able to listen to those experts those people who are engaged particularly in those fields who could have let us know what alternatives there were maybe the consensus around our select committee table would have been that we would agree with Mojo Mathers and it would have been in the amended bill that is before us today. My contribution to that part of the discussion is really to highlight that it was a flawed process that could have been rectified at the beginning.My concluding comment is to thank all the dairy owners around the country who have not been selling these products. They have not been selling these products because they are members of our community and they in fact took it upon themselves to protect particularly young people. Some of them could have been making thousands of dollars and they chose not to do that. So I would like to congratulate them on being the leaders in our community and on having a sense of social responsibility within the context of this Parliament not providing the appropriate tools to protect the community. I thank the people right around the country who have made the effort. That effort now will complement what we are doing in the Committee today. I look forward to the swift passage of this bill and again I thank the Minister for his leadership. Kia ora.