Brown Simeon; Little AndrewSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you Madam Chair for the opportunity to take a call on this bill. I just want to reflect a little bit on what the Minister in the chair the Hon Andrew Little was just saying there. He said we want to ensure that we have these drug-checking services in the places where they purchase these substances. My colleague Penny Simmonds has mentioned the very real issue of drug dealers preying on our young people outside our high schools and if the Minister in the chair was to go and talk to some high school principals and ask them about this issue then he would get some real-world common sense from those principals. But I imagine he hasn't actually done that with this piece of legislation.The question here around this piece of legislation is whether this will protect people from illicit substances by testing those illicit substances. I'd like to ask the Minister where in this piece of legislation will it protect the young people who go along to a drug-checking service with some MDMA and the drug-checking service says Oh yes you've got MDMA and there's no adulterants in it therefore it's all good. Go—you know have fun." because the real issue and the evidence is clear that the real killer from MDMA is MDMA not some adulterants which have been mixed in and which may be found out through this process.The next question I'd like to ask the Minister in the chair is around the issue of inadmissibility of the evidence in the drug-checking service. The question I've got here is: for someone who deals drugs—I'm not talking about just a simple user; I'm talking about someone who deals drugs—and wants to take a couple of samples along to this drug-checking service whether that be at a music festival at K Road or at a university campus or maybe outside a school because that may be where the demand might lead these services and was to check their services what is stopping that person from then using that information to say "Yes I've tested these services." and marketing those services to their sellers and then potentially demand a higher price for that substance?I'd like to ask the Minister why that evidence is inadmissible in the courts and what the purpose of removing that admissibility is. And does it cover not only people who are using substances but does that inadmissibility also extend to people who are supplying substances to others as well? I think the Minister in the chair may want to reflect on that because there is a real issue here in New Zealand with illicit substances. It's not just the use but it's the supply and it's the peddling and it's the misery which gets caused by the people who peddle these substances to our young people and who cause enormous misery throughout society.So I'd like the Minister to spend some time reflecting on those questions and giving some clear answers which give confidence to New Zealanders that this is not going to provide an out of jail sort of way to get around it for drug dealers but also to explicitly answer the question around whether this will provide any exclusionary zones around schools. Because I think parents up and down New Zealand will have very severe concerns about that part of this legislation if there were not exclusionary zones inputted into this legislation.Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): I think to assist that member first of all this is a bill dealing with those who wish to consume substances and who wish to have the substances checked at the time they wish to consume them. I'm not quite sure how much consumption of illicit substances happens at the school gate but that might be a reflection of the member's own experiences.I'm happy to further assist the member by reading the bill for him because clearly he hasn't.Hon Member: Go on.Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I will because he only needs to look at clause 10 which inserts new section 35DDF to know that it is a requirement—and the Health Committee put this in actually—for a drug-checking service to give harm reduction advice to a person whose substances they have just checked. So it's not enough just to kind of test it say "This is what it is." and hand it back. They are required to give harm reduction advice and the harm reduction advice has to be in a manner and a form and a language that is accessible to the person with whom they are dealing. So that is there—that is all there. The member only had to look at the bill to know that that was the case.In terms of the member's concern that somehow a peddler of drugs will go and have some kind of a validation test that they can wield in their advertising the advice that will be given to a person whose substances are tested is verbal advice; no more has to be given. So in the end a person who has substances whether they got it from a peddler or from a friend or picked it up or whatever in the end they are the ones who have the opportunity to get the assurance to know that what they are consuming is going to be safe. It does not allow a peddler to get a kind of a certificate of approval for the stuff that they are trying to sell."