Salesa JennyHon JENNY SALESA (Associate Minister of Health): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker for this opportunity to speak on the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill. The Hon Dr Coleman spoke about how this is a bill that does not introduce anything new that it doesn't even introduce a scheme and that somehow it is the same as what the previous Government had. This legislation will address what is a difficult and complex issue for individuals as well as for families as well as for the medical community.The Hon Dr Coleman referred to the regulatory impact assessment which is what I would like to refer to as well now. Under the heading Problem Definition" it says that "Despite a legal pathway access to affordable medicinal cannabis products remains problematic." in this country and that there is sometimes a reluctance by medical practitioners to prescribe medicinal cannabis. In addition to that there is not affordable medicinal cannabis either. It is not quite that easy to access medicinal cannabis.One of the things that other speakers have spoken about are those folks that have tried to access medicinal cannabis; Helen Kelly being one of them. For her it was also pretty difficult. As part of our 100-day plan this Government committed to making medicinal cannabis more available especially to people who are suffering from terminal illness. Can I say that we are a compassionate caring Government. While we were campaigning all three of us—Labour the Greens as well as New Zealand First—we were getting a lot of feedback from people saying that this is an issue they wanted us to address. We have listened and yes we're introducing a scheme. Can I just reiterate what the honourable Minister of Health spoke about. The medicinal cannabis scheme that this bill actually introduces is a first. It's a scheme that will have an advisory committee. It will review the current requirements for prescribing medicinal cannabis—that's the first thing that the scheme will do. Second it will set a minimum for product quality standards to improve and ensure patient safety—something that we currently do not have. Third we would allow for domestic cultivation and manufacture of medicinal cannabis products. Again this is something we need to address here in Aotearoa. We know that none of us wants to see people suffer. None of us wants to see people in pain especially those with terminal illness. "Terminal illness" is defined as those who are in the last 12 months of their lives. As a compassionate caring Government it is incumbent on us to make sure that those whom the medical profession actually says have a terminal illness—they have only up to 12 months of their lives to live—can ensure that they can access something to help them with pain. We know that they can access medicinal cannabis right now. However we know that not all of them that can actually do have access. Can I also say that the framework that this bill will introduce will ensure that it will have these things. First it will introduce an exception and a statutory defence for terminally ill people to possess and use illicit cannabis. It will also ensure that those who have cannabis utensils are also exempt. Second it will provide regulation-making powers to set high-quality standards to ensure that the products being manufactured are safe. Third it will ensure that schedule 2 of the principal Act has it so that cannabidiol (CBD) and CBD products are no longer classified as controlled drugs. These will become prescription-only medicines and that would reflect the advice that we got from the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs in 2017. So it's important to reiterate the point that this legislation does not make any changes to the legal status of recreational cannabis use. As I said earlier on most of us have watched loved ones have pain—those with terminal illness—and the way that people actually deal with terminal illness and pain is very different. I have relatives whom I've seen in pain. The way that they actually deal with terminal illness and pain is that at one extreme they don't even want to take medication not even morphine. For some of my relatives it's like their statement that they are strong to the end. That's at one extreme. On the other hand though we do know that when people suffer from terminal illness and they have such chronic pain many of them can't even sleep at nights. People have told us that even though they take medicine and even though they take morphine they still are experiencing so much pain and that medicinal cannabis is what actually helps them to sleep. We do know that there are people that suffer from depression and we do know that those with terminal illness towards the end of their lives actually don't have such good quality of life. However they tell us that using medicinal cannabis does assist them especially towards the end of their lives. Medicinal cannabis through this bill will offer that option of relief. It will enable our people in Aotearoa New Zealand to have the best quality of life in the time that is left to them. Indeed as I alluded to before and as other speakers have we have examples of people who have spoken really strongly about the use of medicinal cannabis. Helen Kelly is one such example of a person who lived so bravely so openly with terminal illness and she devoted the last part of her life to campaigning for her fellow New Zealanders to make their lives better. She felt for ordinary people for whom medicinal cannabis might make a real difference. I want to just end with a quote from one of many interviews that she made and this is something that Stuff actually covered. At that stage she was suffering from tumours she had a broken back and she had only a few months to live. I quote her: "I've still got all the symptoms of coughing and being weak but living without pain is sensational." She was taking 10 milligrams of slow-release morphine twice each day but by bedtime the morphine had stopped working and she was aching. I quote her: "If I took nothing I reckon my pain would be seven or eight out of ten. If I just took the morphine my pain would be about five out of ten but if I take both my pain is nothing. [It's only the cannabis] that gives me relief it lets me sleep all night." Introducing this bill is really relevant to a whole lot of people and this is why it's important for us to pass it on after first reading so that it's open to the public for them to come and give us their recommendations about how we move forward. This is something that is of huge importance to a whole lot of people and it is incumbent on us to ensure in terms of the legislation we end up with not just as Government but as an Opposition that members of the public can come and let us know how it is that they would like us to move forward. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you."