Anderton Jim: Misuse of Drugs (Classification of BZP) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Anderton Jim: Misuse of Drugs (Classification of BZP) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:645;Page:14762] 
Hon JIM ANDERTON (Associate Minister of Health) 
: 
 Dr Hutchison suggested that there had been only one trial in terms of evidence. There was not one; there were three. Two of the three trials strongly suggested that benzylpiperazine (BZP) was harmful and one trial suggested there was no evidence of strong harm. The trial in Dunedin at the National Poisons Centre said that BZP should be classified as a controlled drug as soon as possible—and this is “as soon as possible”. 
The second thing Dr Hutchison suggested was that there may be no evidence if we made this drug illegal that users would go on to more hard drug usage and so on. The evidence is actually to the contrary. There is evidence and the evidence is with drugs that have been classified previously. Those drugs that are classified have fallen away in terms of use. The declaration of illegality in terms of drugs is useful in respect of reducing their use. 
I point out that there are two very popular social and legal drugs—one is alcohol and the other is tobacco. Having alcohol and tobacco in use their being legal and having them on supply in dairies and supermarkets has not reduced alcohol usage by much. It is only by the most strenuous work of the Government and other agencies that has reduced tobacco usage which kills 4700 people a year. If BZP did that I think there would be riots on the street. 
This amendment of Dr Hutchison is well intentioned but it is bad lawmaking and he should know that. 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: Talk to parliamentary counsel. 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: I have talked to parliamentary counsel. The Misuse of Drugs Act is currently up for a complete review and that is the process and the opportunity to examine the role of the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs rather than to do so by an amendment to this bill. If we want to change its relationship and want it to report directly to the House and all the rest of it we can do it in that review—if we want to. But at the moment the committee’s function is to report to the Minister. That is in the Act and that is how Parliament determined it should be. The Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs was established to report to the Minister not to the House. That is how the legislation operates. If we want to change the primary legislation we should change it. But we should not do it with an amendment like this to this amendment bill. 
The Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs can now investigate examine and monitor in any way it wants to. MPs can ask it to and they do and members of the public can write to it and they do. MPs and members of the public can write to me and I can recommend or ask the committee to do it. So there is no lack of ability to get the committee to look at issues now and review them and it does. This very bill is a review of BZP by the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs when it made a regulation 2 years ago that BZP should not be on sale to those under 18 and that there should be restrictions on electronic and media advertising and so on. Now it has reviewed it and has come back with a recommendation that it should be classified as class C. 
There is another problem. If Parliament instructs the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs to do something like monitor evaluate or whatever then who is going to pay the money? Does Dr Hutchison have some money that he is going to give to it? The committee has to have money allocated to it to do this work. The work of the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs in terms of the research that was done was paid for by the Ministerial Committee on Drug Policy. We paid about $300000 or $400000 for that research. Is Dr Hutchison or Parliament going to vote for that? They do not have any authority to do it. It is a pointless exercise to think Parliament can instruct the committee under the present way that the legislation is informed. If we want to change that it is up to the Parliament—that is true—but it should be done by a thorough review of the Act which is on the table to be done now. I thought that all parties welcomed that. 
In my view the intention of the amendment is fine but it is misplaced. It is the wrong place to do it it is not a good order in terms of policy making and the Committee should concentrate its efforts on getting this legislation through now on this particular issue then dealing with any reviews in the review of the Misuse of Drugs Act. That is the proper way to go about it.