Turner Judy: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee Third Reading 
Turner Judy: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:626;Page:21484] 
JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) 
: 
 I rise to speak in the Committee stage on Part 1 of this bill and I want to signal now that I have tabled an amendment and will be seeking support from the Committee for it. It is to do with the Order in Council provisions and a recent concern I have about them. 
It is important to state upfront that the Regulations Review Committee information to the Health Committee on the use of Order in Council provisions was very cautious. We know that that is often its approach to this sort of provision. United Future supports the use of Order in Council provisions within this bill where it allows us to respond with urgency to a situation that may develop. When a product comes on the market or the drug scene in New Zealand changes in some circumstance the police want the Government to be able to respond quickly and provide them with the legal framework they need to be able to act. There was some evidence that the methamphetamine situation might not have got away on us quite as quickly as it did if we had been able to respond a little more quickly to that situation historically. We do not want to stifle that opportunity. 
However the problem that has developed with the Order in Council provisions is that as the Act has been designed they can be used in any direction. When one talks about recategorising a drug downwards—softening the impact of the legislation—by Order in Council and that is not born out of a crisis of any kind but out of a policy desire then I think the full scrutiny of Parliament including the public submission process should be considered. 
The concern that we have and that my amendment addresses is in section 4(1B)(b) in clause 5. I will read what it presently states: “(b) the Order in Council increases”—and I think that was the word that some of us had perhaps misunderstood—“the amount level or quantity at and over which the controlled drug is presumed to be for supply.” Well I think some of us read that as meaning it was a tightening measure as we have with methamphetamine. What we are trying to address in this part is that the amount one can have in order to be considered as having a drug for supply was set at too high a level and we are trying to track it backwards so that one can have a smaller amount in one’s possession and be considered to be supplying it. That is extremely appropriate. 
What does the wording here mean when one understands what all the other substances in new schedule 5 of the principal Act are—which is what we are talking about here? Let me give members a hypothetical situation. By Order in Council we could decide to increase the amount of cannabis at which one is considered to have it for supply—I think it is something like 100 cigarettes—to such a level that proving supply would be a complete nonsense. The police would have a huge amount of trouble proving it. My concern is that we could do that by Order in Council with paragraph (b) in existence. As far as I am concerned and United Future is concerned the people we most want to see the law able to ping is those who are supplying our young people. The law must be very clear as to the point at which somebody is considered to have a drug for supply and we must be able to identify those people very very clearly. If we are able by Order in Council to put the amount up then I think a very dangerous situation could develop around that schedule. 
So my amendment removes paragraph (b)—it just deletes it—and I would encourage the Committee to support it. I just remind members that the Health Committee members did agree that the Order in Council must be used only in response to a crisis that the police bring to our attention. It should never be used to implement a policy to liberalise drug law. That was not actually a danger until Supplementary Order Paper 298 was introduced which is now Part 3 of the bill. By introducing Part 3 we have created the opportunity for drugs that are now classified as C grade to be dropped down into a new category.