Turei Metiria: Misuse of Drugs (Classification of BZP) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Turei Metiria: Misuse of Drugs (Classification of BZP) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 13 March 2008. Volume:645;Page:14937. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 As this House knows the Green Party policy on these matters is about reducing harm. We are the only party in this House that has a policy premised on a scientific and evidence-based approach to managing drugs including alcohol and tobacco which are of course the most damaging drugs in our society and our community. We know that drug use can be problematic. But we know that not all drug use is problematic and that the law has to deal with these issues on a rational scientific basis rather than on one based on prejudice and old views. 
I was saddened to hear the Associate Minister Damien O’Connor describe in his speech this afternoon the Green Party amendment to this bill. We put up an amendment that would provide small-business people who are running party pill businesses with the time and opportunity to comply with the law. They know that they will need to comply with the change. They want to comply with the law they do not want to be lawbreakers and they are not lawbreakers—until the law is passed they certainly are not lawbreakers. They want to have the time to do a good job especially if they have to reconfigure their businesses reorganise their finances fire people who are working for them and deal with all those concerns. 
Minister O’Connor presumably speaking for Mr Anderton stood up and said that the Government refused to support our amendment to extend this time period because the businesses—the industry—knew that there was a law coming and therefore they should have been prepared and that is just tough. That reminded me of a member of Parliament from some years ago when I was a teenager who was well known for making law by decree and it occurs to me to ask whether Jim Anderton is a Muldoon Mini-Me in this respect. Is he a Muldoon Mini-Me who will decide that the law should change because he thinks it is a good idea then go out amongst the people and tell them that the law is changing and that he is going to do all this fantastic work make promises to have the law changed by a particular date fail miserably to achieve that goal misinform the public and have no concerns for the businesses who are quite entitled to rely not on a Muldoon Mini-Me decree but on the law of the House and of the land as it stands? 
That is what Mr Anderton did. He should be ashamed and terribly embarrassed by his foolishness. One does not make law by decree in this country. I tell Mr Anderton that this is a democracy and therefore when the law is in one state businesses are entitled to rely on it as is the community. Then when that law changes they are entitled to have some time and opportunity to make the changes so that they can comply. We do not need a Muldoon Mini-Me in this House making law by decree for this country. 
I was also surprised to hear the Associate Minister say that he believed that this law change would eliminate benzylpiperazine (BZP) from this country and that there would be no BZP any more in New Zealand which again highlighted just how utterly irrational his approach to controlling drugs in our country is. Can he point to any single drug ever that has been eliminated from the population in its entirety simply as a result of a law change towards prohibition? Can he? 
Heather Roy 
: No. 
METIRIA TUREI 
: There is silence from the Government benches. The fact is that my colleague Heather Roy is quite right. There simply is no drug that has ever been eliminated from a society simply because it was made illegal. In fact the evidence shows quite the contrary—that indeed drugs proliferate under a regime of prohibition. 
Drugs proliferate under prohibition because they are in the control of unregulated entrepreneurs who see an opportunity to make considerable amounts of money out of an illegal substance that there is still an enormous demand for in our community. Who is going to regulate those entrepreneurs? No one. Who is going to control the access that people might have to those entrepreneurs and their new products? Well one could say the police will do so but I do not see them doing a particularly fantastic job when it comes to other drugs. Have they eliminated methamphetamine from our society because it is illegal? No they have failed to do that. The police do not even manage properly to control the legal drugs that are in this country. They do not even properly manage and make sure that young people do not get access to tobacco for example. So how are the police also expected to eliminate from the community and from these black markets clever little entrepreneurs who are now going to engage in the proliferation of BZP to our young people when they have no capacity at all to talk to them sensibly about the health consequences of what they are doing the kinds of products they are taking the damage they could be doing to themselves and the ways they could keep themselves safe? None of that will be available under this regime because Mr Anderton and his party are relying on the old failed policies of the past—the proven failed policies of the past—in making illegal a substance that Mr Anderton could have controlled from the beginning. 
Here we go back to Mr Anderton’s failure again. He has always had the power to regulate party pills. Party pills as a class D drug can be regulated. Where they are sold can be regulated. Who they are sold to and the content of the drugs or of the pills can be regulated. The packaging and the health information were available to Mr Anderton to control if he chose to do so but he has failed to control and put in place those regulations in the time that BZP has been legal. I raise serious questions as to why he failed to protect our community when he had the power to do so. 
The fact is that he failed to protect our community and our young people because it was politically useful for him to have no controls so he could justify the continued failed policy of the prohibition of BZP. He put our young people at risk on purpose in order to meet his own political objectives. That is disgraceful behaviour by a Minister. That is particularly disgraceful when one is talking about the health of young New Zealanders. Hundreds and thousands of young New Zealanders are put at risk by Mr Anderton because of his failure to properly regulate and control BZP when he could have done so. 
Now that problem has been exacerbated by his continual perpetuation of the myth that prohibition will eliminate these drugs from our society. He has now handed over that control to people who cannot be trusted with the health of our young New Zealanders. 
Hone Harawira 
: Abdicated his responsibility. 
METIRIA TUREI 
: My colleague Hone Harawira is quite right. He has abdicated his responsibility. There is no justification for that position. There is no evidence for that position. It is irrational to take that position. But because this is an issue about drugs for some reason it is OK for the Government through Minister Anderton to take irrational positions on this issue and to put the lives and the health of young New Zealanders at risk. 
Drugs are not so very important and Mr Anderton should be made aware of this. Drugs are not the most important thing in the world. But drug policy is a litmus test for political parties. Like the issue of law and order drug issues are used for electioneering purposes and this is one of those issues. Jim Anderton will go out on the hustings and say that he has protected our young people but he has failed them—for electioneering purposes. To meet his own personal desires whatever they may be Mr Anderton has failed our young people failed our country and failed our communities. He is a disgrace.