Wall Louisa: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Wall Louisa: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:674;Page:20061] 
LOUISA WALL (Labour) 
: 
 Tena koe. Kia ora. It is my pleasure to stand in support of the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill. At the beginning of my speech I will highlight the Law Commission review. The commission comprehensively reviewed the misuse of drugs and concluded by saying that “the most fundamental issue with the Act is that it seems poorly aligned with New Zealand’s current drug policy based on the principle of harm minimisation.” I highlight that we have had a comprehensive review and this was one of the critical findings of the Law Commission’s report. The other thing the commission concluded was that “We think that these changes can only be effected by a completely new Act and the repeal of the existing Act is therefore necessary. A key issue … is how any new legislative framework might better support the pillars of demand reduction and problem limitation in drug policy.” As a party we very much concur with the Law Commission’s position. We support this bill but we remain concerned that the bill as written will not achieve the aims of reducing the availability of methamphetamine or reducing drug-related harm. 
I did not have the pleasure of sitting on the Health Committee and hearing submissions on the bill but I want to highlight given the purposes of the bill—I will not read through them again—and linger on the point of extended controls over drug paraphernalia. I highlight that the select committee reported that “Most of the submissions we received expressed opposition to the proposed amendment to the utensils provision. Many argued that prohibiting drug utensils would be ineffective and would increase the harm suffered by drug users because they would make their own utensils or would buy them illegally.” 
I highlight at this point in time the fact that my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway signalled when he spoke on this bill earlier that we will be putting forward an amendment to have clause 4 removed from this legislation. Clause 4 relates to drug utensils. From the information I have no submitter at the Health Committee said that this particular provision of the bill would achieve anything. In fact we heard that potentially we would see an increase in harm caused by people using ad hoc replacements. I think we need to take this seriously. As such we are going to put forward our own amendment to that effect. 
It was very interesting to have an opportunity to speak on this particular bill. I decided to go to the Law Commission as a source of information because I had not been involved in the select committee process. What I find really interesting is that overwhelmingly there is clear evidence that we have a problem in New Zealand. In 2001 and 2003 a New Zealand national household survey looked at amphetamine and methamphetamine use. After cannabis it was the second most widely used illegal drug in New Zealand. So we know we have a problem. 
In 2001 5 percent of New Zealanders who responded to this survey said they had used methamphetamine during the previous year. This definitely concurs with international trends about the prevalence of such use which really started in the late 1990s. The Law Commission reported that “overall levels of use of psychoactive substances are significant … and that overall the proportion of the population using drugs is not really changing.” From one level we have to do something that will reduce the use of drugs but on another level we have to look at how we reduce the harm for people who use drugs. 
There is general agreement from everybody that we have a drug problem in New Zealand but as has been stated quite clearly we do not believe that this ad hoc manner of amendments over consecutive years to this particular legislation will achieve much at all. As I said earlier we concur with the Law Commission report that there should be an overhaul of this entire misuse of drugs legislation. 
The other aspects I want to highlight are the continual amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Act which was first enacted in 1975. It has been really interesting going through the different changes that happened in 1978. Of note was a provision that authorised the detention of a person for up to 21 days without being charged where there was reason to believe that that person had concealed a class A or B drug. In 1988 for example the possession of needles and syringes that had been obtained through authorised needle exchange programmes was permitted. At that time that amendment was to try to reduce the risk of blood-borne infection from dirty or shared needles within the context of a concern over the risk of the HIV virus spreading among intravenous drug users. As we have seen historically we have been concerned about harm minimisation within the context of the evolution of this bill. 
The Law Commission itself was very clear that our approach to various drugs is inextricably linked to our history and our culture and our regulatory framework for psychoactive substances must recognise political and social realities. I guess one of those realities we are facing today is the creation and development of analogues or products such as Kronic which through whatever means are deemed to be legal within the context of that commodity and are able to be purchased publicly. We are now looking at how those substances engage and interact in a society where our young people are at huge risk. 
It is timely we have an opportunity yet again to look at the Misuse of Drugs Act but I contend as my colleagues have contended previously that we should not do it in this band-aid ad hoc way; we should do it in a comprehensive way. It is good that some measures within this bill will address some of the issues we have in terms of the provision of drugs. But we contend that unless we have a comprehensive overview we will not address much at all. 
I really do not have much more to add other than to congratulate all the people who participated in the democratic process and submitted on this bill. I know we must see this issue within the context of substances that people are using today because they have problems in their lives. I think it is very important that we continue to put drugs on the agenda particularly for our young people. I look forward to the continued debate on this legislation and I thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on this bill.