Tanczos Nandor: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) — First Reading 
Tanczos Nandor: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) — First Reading 
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NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) 
: 
 The Greens will be supporting this bill to the select committee. We think it will be an interesting examination and we look forward to the evidence on the pros and cons of the various aspects of the bill because it does contain a number of very different provisions. Some we support very strongly others we oppose and still others we feel neutral about. 
I shall indicate why we support the bill and why we thank Mr Anderton for introducing it. Firstly there is a provision to add a Ministry of Justice representative to the membership of the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs. Some members may think that is insignificant but we think it is very important. It is well needed. If we think back to the scheduling of Fantasy it demonstrated clearly that there has been a glaring gap in the expertise available to the advisory committee in looking at these things. 
Let us be clear: at that time the Greens supported the scheduling of Fantasy. It was becoming increasingly obvious that there were very real dangers associated with its use. But we did have real concerns about making Fantasy a class B1 drug rather than a class B2 or some other because it included search without warrant provisions. The Greens have a very real concern about the extension of search without warrant provisions to the police. We think it is a very dangerous power and should be used very very carefully. There are a number of examples of case law where judges are criticising the way that police use powers of search without warrant—in fact they have acquitted people because of the way those powers have been used and abused in ways that breach people’s rights as guaranteed under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Of course that does not mean all police officers but some front-line officers have used those powers in ways that the law did not intend. 
I think it is questionable whether the Misuse of Drugs Act would have contained search without warrant provisions at all if that 1975 legislation had been subject to the vetting of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act in the way that legislation is today. 
We questioned the inclusion of those powers at the time. The answers we were given by the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs were unsatisfactory. We asked why those search without warrant powers should be applied to Fantasy. We got no real justification at all. There was no evidential basis for that decision. We think that including a Ministry of Justice official as a member of the advisory committee will help to make sure that those considerations are discussed by the committee. If there are substances that will attract search without warrant powers then there will have to be an evidential reason why such draconian powers should attach to that substance. 
We strongly support the changes relating to the possession of needles. The Needle and Syringe Exchange Programme is an extremely important regime for reducing the incidence of HIV and hepatitis C among intravenous drug users. The places where the needles are available are also very important for providing information to those communities and getting information. Those are among the few areas where the intravenous drug-using community interacts with the State. It is important that we protect the integrity of that in order that we can understand what is happening within that community and the community can get better access to health information and harm reduction information. It is extremely important and we support the changes in the application of the defence provisions to expand the provision of those needle exchange services. 
However there are things that we oppose—in particular as I have foreshadowed the extension of search without warrant powers to precursors by amending schedule 4. Let us be clear: the Greens supported increased restrictions around precursors which have already been passed by the House. We supported those provisions because we recognise that P is an extremely dangerous drug. It has very very real risks. But we do not believe the search without warrant provisions attaching to those precursors are necessary or warranted. I have already spoken about the significant implications of search without warrant powers generally. There is no real constraint over how the police use those powers. 
I will be very interested to have a look at the advice of the Attorney-General on the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act implications of the extension of this to precursor drugs. It seems a totally unnecessary expansion of the arbitrary power of the police to search and seize. Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure is one of the basic guarantees in human rights conventions and bill of rights legislation. 
 We have to remember that precursors are by definition drugs about to be used in the manufacture of methamphetamine or other serious drugs. So if these precursors are being used in the manufacture of those drugs one does not need a search without warrant provision. There is ample time for the police to go to a JP or a judge and to get themselves a search warrant. We are talking about precursors that are involved in a lengthy manufacturing process; we are not talking about people on the street with a small amount of something. So it is just not necessary to have those search without warrant powers with the dangers that go along with increasing its use. 
The Green Party also has concerns about some of the provisions in relation to customs officers. The explanatory note talks about two new offences. The first one enables customs officers “to seize and detain precursor substances imported into New Zealand or exported from New Zealand with the knowledge that they would be used to commit an offence”. That is quite sensible and I can totally understand that. There is concern about the other offence which enables customs officers “to seize and detain precursor substances imported into New Zealand or exported from New Zealand without reasonable excuse with a maximum penalty of 1 year’s imprisonment.” We have a bit of a concern around that because what it once again seems to be doing as with other drug legislation is reversing the onus of proof and saying that one has to prove one’s intention rather than the prosecution proving it. We think that that is something this House should be very careful about doing. 
The other thing is this email that has just come around with a background explanation from the Government about the bill. One of the things I wanted to draw the attention of the House to is controlled deliveries in relation to search without warrant powers. We can see the point of allowing a controlled delivery to take place; it makes sense as that is a basic police sting operation. But the justification for adding search without warrant powers in this regard is it says that the police rely on section 18(3) of the Misuse of Drugs Act to detain and search without a warrant; however it is confined only to class A B1 and C1 controlled drugs. This precludes some current drugs of abuse that are being imported and the bill talks about precursors. 
Of course the thing is that if the bill is going to make precursors subject to search without warrant provisions then that no longer applies. So the very reasoning in the Government’s explanation actually no longer applies when the legislation comes into force. The second one it mentions is that the police powers under section 18(3) cannot be used in situations where the drugs have been substituted with placebos because there are no controlled drugs in the packet. But once again let us be clear that a search without warrant power is not needed. If the Customs Service knows there is a delivery if it is tracking it and if it is going to bust that house there is plenty of time for the police to go to a JP and get themselves a warrant. Look if they are tracking the package then they know where it is and they know where it is going. It takes just half an hour to go down to a JP and get a search warrant. I have seen them do it and that is how it works. The other point I am going to make— 
Craig McNair 
: It’s not quite as simple as that. 
NANDOR TANCZOS 
: It actually is as simple as that—I have seen them do it. The other point I would like to make is that the Supplementary Order Paper that the Government has said it will introduce to bring in a new schedule to allow R18 restrictions is something that we support. This is something that we recommended when the expert advisory committee was looking at benzylpiperazine and we think it is a very sensible thing. I would like to be assured that that will be introduced in a way that means the select committee will be able to call for submissions and examine them; that it will be introduced early enough so that it goes to select committee and the public gets to have a say. 
Our concern is also that it does not go far enough. The Misuse of Drugs Act is very complex confusing legislation and this is adding piecemeal new bits and pieces which makes it even more complex. We in the Green Party think we have an opportunity here to simplify and expand the Misuse of Drugs Act to tidy it up so that it is straightforward streamlined legislation and to expand it so it can deal with a wide range of recreational drugs. We support R18 provisions. Let us put tobacco and alcohol into the Misuse of Drugs Act as well. Let us put in the legal highs as well as those that are R18 restricted. We could put in a class that has no age-limit but includes things like warnings on vessels and advertising restrictions. We could put caffeinated drinks like V and Red Bull in there as well. We could have a single piece of legislation that deals in a consistent integrated and sensible way with a full range of recreational drugs. That would be a much more sensible way than the hodgepodge legislation we have now.