Tanczos Nandor: Misuse of Drugs (Industrial Hemp) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Tanczos Nandor: Misuse of Drugs (Industrial Hemp) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) 
: 
 I move  
That the Misuse of Drugs (Industrial Hemp) Amendment Bill be now read a second time 
. This bill has been before this Parliament for some time. It was introduced in early 2001 at a time when I think it is fair to say the Government was dithering on the issue. There was growing public concern about a law that did not; allow the growing of industrial hemp. The arable division of Federated Farmers had expressed support for the idea and the Government was considering what to do about that growing pressure. The bill was introduced in early 2001 and between its introduction and first reading the Government announced that it would proceed with 2 years of trials of industrial hemp. That was a very positive thing and similarly to my Clean Slate Bill it basically forced the Government’s hand and required it to make up its mind one way or the other about where it would go on the issue. To the Government’s credit it took that as a positive move and got behind industrial hemp in so far as allowing the trials to proceed. I have to take at least some credit for that along with Rod Donald the co-leader of the Greens who had also been agitating on the issue for some time. 
The bill was referred to the Primary Production Committee. I said at the time that I expected it to be amended—in particular to allow the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to create regulations by Order in Council. I had 2 weeks to prepare the bill between the selection of my Clean Slate Bill and the next ballot so the drafting of it was fairly rushed although it is a simple bill. The bill went to the select committee and I fully expected that in spite of fact that we had trials going ahead the select committee would hear submissions and perhaps use the submissions from the industry as a way of helping to develop the regulation of those trials. Unfortunately the select committee took the view that we would allow the trials to go ahead before hearing submissions and I went along with that. 
We had the first year of trials and the evaluations were extremely successful. No security issues were identified by the working-party. There was a small problem with bird strike because birds love hemp seeds and for many years that had been the main object of growing hemp seeds—for bird food. The select committee asked for an environmental evaluation in light of that and it was quite proper for it to do so. At the end of the next year there was also an extremely good evaluation of the trials. There was no problem with bird strike in the second year that I am aware of although that may have been the case and the environmental evaluation by the working-party showed that there were no significant issues to be addressed in terms of any environmental risk posed by the growing of industrial hemp. Of course that makes a lot of sense—it is a light-loving plant it is highly palatable to pretty well any animal that comes across it and the seed is destroyed in the animal’s digestive tract. So it is not likely that it would pose a great risk. Nevertheless that did not stop some members of the committee from making much ado about nothing and basically not letting the facts get in the way of a good story as they say. 
I think there was an abuse of process because at the end of the second year of trials the select committee announced that even though it had said it would hear submissions at the end of the trials rather than at the beginning it was then making the decision not to hear any submissions at all because we had just had 2 years of trials. That is very very unusual. In fact it is possibly an unprecedented thing for a select committee to have a bill before it and not even call for submissions on it. That is quite extraordinary and I think it is also quite an abuse of the process. I have to highlight in particular the contributions made by some Government members—Dover Samuels Janet Mackey and Damien O’Connor—by Gerrard Eckhoff from ACT and by Phil Heatley from the National Party. They went out of their way to be as obstructive as possible on this issue. To be fair the chair David Carter behaved very reasonably and addressed the issues. Doug Woolerton of New Zealand First also behaved very reasonably. Both those members actually wanted to look at the evidence. However it is fair to say that some of the members of the committee to their shame saw they could gain more political mileage by providing an obstacle to the development of a viable hemp industry and the political capital they could gain from having a bit of a kick around on the issue rather than by actually standing up for farming people. Gerrard Eckhoff is often proud of what a farmer he is. Standing in the way of farmers having the opportunity to do what they have asked this Parliament to allow them to do which is to grow industrial hemp is to the shame of those members. 
As a result of the select committee’s unwillingness to do a bit of work and hear some submissions we now have the ridiculous situation that hemp is being regulated by Medsafe. I think if members of the committee had heard submissions they would have heard a pretty much unanimous view from the hemp industry that Medsafe is entirely the wrong body to issue those regulations and that it should be done by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. To be fair to Medsafe I think that Medsafe does not particularly want that role either; it has just ended up in Medsafe’s lap. When we go to Medsafe’s website and look at what its mission is—this is the body that is to regulate industrial hemp which is an industrial crop used for building products for cloth such as this and for other products—we see that it is to enhance the health of New Zealanders by regulating medicines and medical devices to maximise safety and the benefit gained from them. It is absolutely bizarre that that body has been put in charge of regulating the hemp industry. I was scratching my head about that issue so I asked some of my friends why they thought that should be the case. The obvious answer came back that when it comes to evaluating the use of cannabis for medicine and we need medical advice on that we go to the police and judges so it stands to reason that if we want agricultural advice we should ask a doctor. There is a great logic in that. It is a slightly Orwellian logic but I can see that there is logic in that. 
There was a lot of concern about the draft regulations put out by Medsafe and that is not Medsafe’s fault. Industrial hemp is just not Medsafe’s area of expertise so we would not expect it to get that particularly right. It was a concern that when Rod Donald and I met with some of the Medsafe people it became clear to us that they simply were not aware of many of the uses of industrial hemp. Food products in particular were the things they were unaware of—food products produced overseas quite happily and legally for the health benefits of people in Canada all over Europe and in places such as that but products that we cannot have in this country. However I am pleased to see that the Government and the regulatory body have responded to the comments on the draft regulations and I am pleased to say that there is an attempt to address at least some of concerns. I commend the Minister and Medsafe on that. I understand the new regulations are due for release in January. I have a question concerning the people who want to plant industrial hemp this year: where will they be left with regard to the regulations? 
There is a big issue outstanding which is the hemp seed issue. The then Australia New Zealand Food Authority rejected hemp as a food despite the overwhelming international evidence of its nutritional value due to its profile of amino acids and essential fatty acids gamma linolenic acid and the like. The Minister to her credit got an exemption for New Zealand that allowed us to produce hemp seed oil and so now we have New Zealand - made hemp seed oil—cold-pressed hemp seed oil pressed by a company in Ashburton. That is very good to see. But one of the problems is that New Zealand is not able to be competitive with other countries because it cannot use the other by-products from that. We can produce the oil but we cannot use the seed cake as a by-product. Farmers in Canada can grow hemp for food—they can make pasta out of the seed cake. We cannot do that because it is illegal in this country. I think that the Government should look at addressing that issue with some urgency and I hope to see the Minister of Health do that. 
The Greens are unhappy and I am unhappy that this bill will not proceed. Clearly it will be voted down by this House and we think that that is a shame. It is still the most sensible way to deal with hemp—to allow it to be regulated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry rather than by the Ministry of Health; it does not belong in there. But I am pleased to see that hemp is in production in this country and is being grown. We have products available as a result—food products insulation and various other things. There is a great future for papers and building products as well. The long-term future is looking particularly good for the industry. I have to pay tribute to the people who drew the attention of this country to hemp in the early 1990s for the first time. Initially they were people like Mike Finlayson Chris Fowlie Rob Uberfeldt Gina Thompson Marion Barnes and myself and later people like Brian Slight Mac McIntosh and others. I say good on them for their work. This country is the better for it despite the complacency of this Parliament.