Faafoi Kris: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Faafoi Kris: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:674;Page:20193] 
KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana) 
: 
 Thank you very much Mr Chairperson for allowing me to have this opportunity to speak to Part 1 of the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill. Although the Labour caucus is supportive of both this bill and Supplementary Order Paper 258 which has been put forward by the Minister in the chair the Hon Peter Dunne one cannot help but think that the level of hype that has been afforded to this bill and the Supplementary Order Paper is a little above their station. 
In relation to the Supplementary Order Paper that the Minister has put in front of us on the banning of synthetic cannabis what mums and dads out there in New Zealand wanted to have was a consistent message from the Minister about what he was going to do about the likes of Kronic but we have not had that. Although I congratulate the Minister on coming to a position we have not had a consistent position for the last 4 months. Around 4 months ago when the Minister was asked about the limited sale and advertisement of synthetic cannabis what did we get from him? It was not the position that we see in the Supplementary Order Paper today; it was: “I have instructed the Ministry of Health to begin the process of putting the necessary controls in place. I expect these changes to come into effect next year.” There was not much urgency in that. 
Just as mums and dads may have got a whiff of Kronic from their sons’ or daughters’ bedrooms or the garage I think the Minister may have got a whiff of public sentiment and the public mood and he decided that things had to move a little bit quicker than he had first anticipated. There was some movement on 3 June when he was asked why he had not banned synthetic cannabis. The response then was that the evidence was not strong enough to go as far as doing that and that he did not want to go down that path. But we have taken a step closer to that in the Supplementary Order Paper that is before the Committee now and I think the mums and dads out there who are looking for a consistent message will be happy with that. 
Just a month and a half ago another question was asked about the Law Commission’s recommendations. The response from the Minister on that occasion was that the Government was “under certain statutory requirements and we have the complications of a general election occurring …”. I am glad that those complications have been sorted out since 17 June. Late yesterday afternoon as this announcement was made the message from the Minister finally was: “I felt we couldn’t wait. I wanted to make sure we had a mechanism that simply removes these items from our shelves completely.” So it took 4 months but we got a result in the end. There has been inconsistent messaging regarding that but we support the fact that this Supplementary Order Paper has been introduced to the Committee so that we finally have some form of action on the banning of synthetic cannabis. We support it but how we got here leaves a few questions to be answered. 
In terms of Part 1 of the bill at the moment we believe that it will do no harm but we think it could have gone further. Again this is another instance where the hype might not exactly marry up with what is included in the bill. This bill looks to control ephedrine and pseudoephedrine in the Government’s war on P but as I said in a previous contribution on this bill I think there is more of a fracas over P. It is not really a war on P. The Government is making huge capital out of it as it sends out its pamphlets about the war on P but this bill itself does not take serious action. I think it is more about politics than taking serious action against P. I understand clause 4 includes— 
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: Pipes utensils. 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: —pipes and utensils. My colleague sitting next to me Iain Lees-Galloway has put up Supplementary Order Paper 260 because we believe there is no scientific evidence that this clause will make much difference. Actually in some cases it could cause more harm to people who may not be using these kinds of utensils so we believe as the member’s Supplementary Order Paper proposes that this clause should be removed from the bill. 
There is also another cost of living issue here. Now that those people who have serious colds or the flu have to go to the doctor to get hold of the good stuff in terms of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: How much will it cost? 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: —how much will it cost? Exactly. The Ministry of Health has not done sufficient work on the cost implications that will have for families who are struggling to make ends meet and also on the kind of impact it will have on the workload of general practitioners who may now have a flood of people during the winter months who come to them to ask for medicine that was readily available through pharmacies before this law came into effect. 
So we are also concerned about some cost of living issues around this measure and those have not been addressed in this bill. We still have some serious concerns about what may happen in terms of the effect on families who are struggling to make ends meet. 
We also have other concerns about Part 1 and I go back to the placing of further restrictions on drug utensils which Mr Lees-Galloway’s Supplementary Order Paper referred to and the negative health effects that that may have on people who are still using cannabis to date. If I recall correctly there is a filter in some of the utensils used to smoke cannabis that may ensure the filtration of some of the harmful toxins so the utensils were having some positive effects on some of the people who use the pipes. The fact that this bill looks to ban the use of utensils or the importation of utensils is of serious concern. 
I go back to the overriding theme that I touched on before and that is the politicisation around this bill and the fact that it does not really achieve what the Government has set out to do in its multi-pronged attack in the war on P. We believe that this bill does not really address the issue of ensuring that we cut down on the production and use of P in our communities. There is absolutely no debate about the fact that P is a massive problem in our communities—it certainly is in the electorate that I represent—but if we are to take some real action on it we need to ensure that this legislation has the detail in it to ensure that we can control the importation of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine. We do not believe it does. It is my understanding that 80-plus percent of the pseudoephedrine that comes into New Zealand for the manufacture of P does not come through the corner pharmacy—not at all. It is being brought in illegally through our borders. 
To give credit where credit is due there have been a lot of high-profile cases recently where large consignments of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine have been stopped at our border but if we are to have a real crackdown on the ingredients for P I ask why we are bringing in this measure which will affect only the mums dads and families at home who rely on some decent medicine in our pharmacies in order to ensure that every winter they have a decent cold and flu remedy. This bill does not really take us in the direction that we need to go in the war on P. It is off target in a way because as I say the main factor in the war on P should be making sure that we crack down on the supply and importation of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine at our borders. 
Just to finish I say this bill does not address the real issue around the production of P. It is purely window dressing. Although we do support the Supplementary Order Paper that the Minister has introduced and we are very happy that we have got here the way that we have got here leaves a lot to be considered.