Mathers Mojo: Psychoactive Substances Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMathers Mojo: Psychoactive Substances Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 09 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9148. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MOJO MATHERS (Green): It is with some mixed feelings that I rise to speak to this bill the Psychoactive Substances Bill. The Green Party strongly supports sensible regulation of party pills legal highs and other psychoactive substances for the reasons covered previously by my colleague Kevin Hague. However we do have significant concerns about the nature of the testing regime being proposed for these substances.Last year I tabled in Parliament a report commissioned by the Ministry of Health outlining a possible testing regime. All of the proposed tests in that paper involved forcing animals including dogs to ingest the substances by the same route that humans will be ingesting them which means that for some substances such as synthetic cannabis they will be forced to wear masks to inhale them. Even with the notorious LD50 tests ruled out it is clear that the level of pain and suffering involved in the proposed test will be incredibly high.Whenever animal testing is proposed we need to be sure that the benefit to society justifies the level of suffering involved and that all non-animal means of testing for safety have been properly considered. So far neither of these criteria has been met. It was incredible that there was no consideration in the Ministry of Health report of non-animal tests and their effectiveness. Furthermore recreational drugs are not medicine: no one has to take them daily to remain alive or to stay healthy.The Green Party supports the call for a clause to be added to this bill that prohibits animal testing for these drugs. Such a move would be in line with public opinion and within international trends towards reducing animal testing.In the 1990s the United Kingdom banned all animal testing of tobacco and alcohol for ethical reasons and put in place a new system to approve such products for sale. As a result there has been huge progress in the development of non-animal toxicity tests. Innovative substantial advances in cell-culture technology and computer modelling mean that microchips and models can be made to mimic the effects of drugs on human organs like lungs liver and bone marrow to understand the effects that certain substances will have on human health. Although no test is 100 percent accurate in predicting the impact of drugs on humans non-animal tests are increasingly being shown to be significantly better predictors than animal tests. Recent research for example has shown that non-animal tests involving cell lines to be 80 to 97 percent accurate in predicting the impact as opposed to 40 to 60 percent accuracy for rodent trials. The main reason that animal tests are still being done is that legislation and policy making have not kept up with the science.We also need to rule out animal tests to prevent the exporting of animal testing to overseas. The two main countries involved in contract testing are China and India. Both countries have little or no animal welfare protections in place for laboratory animals and there is evidence showing that the way that these animals in the labs are treated falls well short of anything that we would allow in New Zealand. Without a clause ruling out animal tests it is very likely that many New Zealand companies will simply opt to have the testing done in these countries partly because it is cheaper to do so but clearly it just shifts the moral problem elsewhere.New Zealand has often been described as a world leader in animal welfare and it forms an important part of our international reputation. Let us not comprise thisreputation by allowing cruel animal testing for psychoactive substances. I strongly urge the ministry to listen to public views on this issue review the evidence and insert a clause to exclude these cruel outdated and unnecessary tests from this bill. Thank you.