Dunne Peter: Psychoactive Substances Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDunne Peter: Psychoactive Substances Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 09 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9132. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PETER DUNNE (Associate Minister of Health): I moveThat the Psychoactive Substances Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Health Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time I will move that the Health Committee report to the House on the bill by 14 June 2013 and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Members please show some courtesy.Hon PETER DUNNE: —despite Standing Orders 188 190 and 191(1)(b) and (c).Over the last 20 years New Zealand and other countries have been facing an acceleration in the development of new recreational drugs. The Misuse of Drugs Act 1975—the legislation that protects the public from drugs that are known to pose a moderate high or very high risk of harm—was never designed for an environment in which dozens of new substances can be brought to the market in the space of just a few weeks. It has simply been unable to keep up. Scores of products with unknown effects and unknown risk profiles—indeed some barely known to science at all—have slipped through this regulatory void and on to dairy shelves. The public has been rightly concerned as news reports have highlighted that young adults adolescents and even some children have been taking these so-called legal highs and suffering as a result.About 18 months ago this House passed an amendment to the Misuse of Drugs Act which has allowed me to issue temporary class drug notices in theGazette. These are time-limited bans and the effect of a temporary class drug notice is to apply the same penalties as we do for cannabis except that personal possession is not an offence. So far I have issued such notices for 33 of these substances affecting more than 50 products. More are still available. But there is a game of regulatory cat and mouse afoot here where an irresponsible industry seeks to elude authorities and circumvent the law by bringing new chemicals to the lucrative market of things that have not yet been banned.Many people have asked me why we do not simply ban these substances altogether. Unfortunately because the retail products are a combination of substances—some areharmful and some are not—it is simply not that simple. What the temporary class drug notice regime has done is make it possible to respond faster to new developments but I freely concede—and did so at the time—that it does nothing to slow those developments in the first place. That can actually have the perverse effect of increasing the range of emerging drugs. This proliferation of poorly understood chemicals and their widespread use should concern all of us. We need an enduring solution and that is what this bill is all about.The Psychoactive Substances Bill ends this dangerous game of cat and mouse by banning the import the manufacture the sale the supply and the possession of psychoactive substances. It reverses the onus of proof by making all psychoactive substances illegal unless the industry can prove their products are low risk. Psychoactive substances are broadly defined in the bill as substances mixtures preparations articles devices or things that are capable of inducing a psychoactive effect by any means in the people who choose to use them. Substances already governed by other legislation—foods medicines supplements herbal remedies alcohol tobacco controlled drugs and precursors to controlled drugs—are excluded from that definition. To avoid situations where the law is circumvented by people labelling products such as bath salts incense or plant food as has happened here and overseas there is a power for a declaration by Order in Council that a substance is or is not a psychoactive substance for the purpose of this legislation.This law will not be mocked by fine print “Not for human consumption” words being placed on packaging. But it is not the Government’s intention to ban absolutely everything for ever. The meat of the bill is a pathway to a regulated market for psychoactive substances if they can be shown to pose no more than a low risk of harm. I emphasise here that to say that a product poses no more than a low risk of harm is not the same as saying that a product is safe. No one will be allowed to claim that a product is safe. The Government has no intention of acting in a way that might be interpreted as an endorsement of party drugs.What the bill does is create a Psychoactive Substances Regulatory Authority and an expert advisory committee. The authority will be responsible for granting licences for the import and manufacture of psychoactive substances and on the advice of the expert committee approving psychoactive products for sale if they have been shown to pose no more than that low risk of harm I spoke of.To bring a product to market a sponsor will therefore have to demonstrate to the expert committee that the product poses no more than a low risk of harm. Practically speaking this will involve providing the committee with evidence from clinical safety trials similar to those required to bring a new medicine to market. That process will be expensive and I make no apology for that. There will be no room under this regime for fly-by-night operators wanting to sell substances on the cheap that they do not fully understand.Approved products will be made subject to comprehensive regulatory control. So even if they come through the hoop people under 18 will be unable to buy sell or be supplied these products. For retail outlets the packaging the labelling and the promotion of approved products will be strictly limited. There will be requirements for health warnings on the packaging since even products with no more than a low risk of harm cannot be called completely safe. Manufacturing standards disposal and record-keeping requirements will be set.In the legislation itself there is a requirement for product sponsors or licence holders to report all adverse events involving their products to the authority which will have the power to suspend or cancel trading in a product. And finally the bill contains a transitional provision that allows products lawfully sold throughout the 6 months priorto the commencement of the legislation to remain on the shelves if—and only if—an application for approval has been lodged with the authority no later than 30 days after this legislation is enacted. I expect that provision to receive a reasonable level of attention during the select committee process and I therefore encourage the committee to consider it in the light of the bill’s intention to minimise health-related harm and to place the onus of proof on the sponsor.The penalties for infringing against this regime are strong but commensurate with the need to protect the public from unknown drugs. This bill is a necessary measure to protect the health of the public by regulating novel psychoactive substances in a way that is proportionate to the risks they pose. It is a world first and when I attended the recent United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime meeting in Vienna our legislation was the subject of considerable attention and interest. New Zealand is being seen as an innovator. We are seen as a country that is promoting through this bill a viable solution to a problem that many countries are similarly grappling with. I am therefore very proud of this bill and I am very proud now to commend it to the House for its first reading.