Tanczos Nandor: Misuse of Drugs (Classification of BZP) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Tanczos Nandor: Misuse of Drugs (Classification of BZP) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 11 September 2007. Volume:642;Page:11724. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) 
: 
 First of all I want to thank Mr Harawira for that excellent speech. This bill as the libertarians have said is about putting the “P” into benzylpiperazine (BZP). Despite the Hon Jim Anderton’s intentions his legacy from his years as would-be drug tsar will be the criminalisation of a huge range of New Zealanders and the boosting of the illegal drug market as a result. 
About 20 percent of New Zealanders surveyed said that they have used party pills—20 percent. It is estimated that BZP has been used by over 400000 New Zealanders. They have consumed 26 million pills with no deaths or lasting injuries. All the available research shows that banning BZP will send many thousands of young people to the more dangerous illegal drug market of counterfeit street Ecstasy and methamphetamine. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: It’s not what the research says. It’s not what the universities say. It’s not what the doctors say. 
NANDOR TANCZOS 
: I ask the member to wait—I will give him the answer. 
People have spoken about the dangers of BZP in this debate. Interestingly with an estimated 200000 pills used a month 21 patients going to the emergency departments in a year is actually a relatively small number. That will not be the case when prohibition is enacted under this bill because many people will continue to use party pills—this Parliament seems to have difficulty understanding that people do not obey unjust or unreasonable laws—and those people will no longer be assured about what they are actually taking. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: So we should legalise everything? 
NANDOR TANCZOS 
: I will give Mr Cosgrove the answer. He keeps interrupting and I will give him the answer in a second. I ask him to be patient. 
There will be no consumer protection and no consumer information and consumers will be pushed into the hands of organised criminal organisations that will certainly fill the gap. Today the Government announced that it is setting up a specialised organised crime agency at the same time as it is writing a blank cheque for organised crime with this bill. 
What is the heinous evil that the Government is intending to remedy by this bill? The Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs has described BZP as a moderate risk. It said there is no evidence of aggressive behaviour sexual assault or date rape - type behaviours and there have been no reported deaths solely as a result of BZP use. 
 The Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs said that should BZP be made illegal people who continue to use it may be discouraged from seeking medical attention if they experience adverse effects. Moreover the committee said there was no guarantee that scheduling a substance as a controlled substance under the Misuse of Drugs Act reduces the availability or potential risk from a drug. I want to emphasise that last point. There is no guarantee that doing this will either reduce the availability of the drug or the harm from using it. That is what the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs said. 
The point is that the legislation that empowers the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs does not despite the attempts made by the Green Party include as a criterion for making these kinds of recommendations whether the harm from using a drug will be increased or decreased by the scheduling. That is the basic flaw. When the committee made this recommendation it did not take into account whether scheduling the drug would increase or decrease harm. So what kind of recommendation will it make? It is just bizarre. [ 
Interruption 
] Mrs Turner will remember that the Green Party tried to make that amendment in the Health Committee in 2005 and we were opposed by that member herself and by other members of the committee. 
The New Zealand Drug Foundation one of our most impartial and independent bodies with expertise in this area has said that clear patterns of adverse effects are starting to emerge from the research: seizures uncontrollable twitching inability to sleep—of course that is why people take it; they do not want to sleep—nausea and vomiting. Across the population-based research and the clinical trials adverse effects appear to be reasonably common but generally mild and short-lasting. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Rubbish! 
NANDOR TANCZOS 
: Oh he is the expert! A study by the Auckland City Hospital Emergency Department Overdose Database which was published in the  
New Zealand Medical Journal 
 compared party pills with ecstasy gamma-hydroxybutyrate amphetamines cocaine and alcohol. It was found that most patients who presented with multidrug ingestions were discharged home after receiving reassurance intravenous fluids and diazepam—reassurance intravenous fluids and diazepam! I guess that is what the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs meant when it said the drug posed moderate harm. 
Maybe the bill is needed in order to do something about the sellers. Well no—the Attorney-General’s advice was that in relation to supply the bill breaches the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. That means that the reverse onus provisions in this bill breach the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act guarantee that a person charged with an offence should be presumed innocent until proven guilty—a basic tenet of our law. That advice says that limitation cannot be justified in a free and democratic society which makes one start to wonder how the Government justifies it in this country. This advice of course follows the Supreme Court finding in  
Hansen v R 
 which was around this very issue of the reverse onus of proof in section 6(6) of the Misuse of Drugs Act. It breaches the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. 
Well what should we do? Clearly what is happening at the moment is not acceptable. The Green policy on this issue has been consistent for a number of years. Our policy is about reducing harm. We believe that a drug-free lifestyle is the healthiest although I would say to Mr Cosgrove that not many members of this House enjoy a drug-free lifestyle. All drug use regardless of legal status can cause harm but it is also a fact that not all drug use is problematic and many of the Government’s policies in this area exacerbate harm rather than reduce it and this bill is a classic example of that. 
The Greens favour strict regulation of party pills not prohibition. We favour regulations such as heavily enforced age restrictions restrictions on where outlets can be mandatory health information quality and quantity controls severe restrictions on advertising and severe penalties for breaching such regulations. That approach would be more effective at addressing the problems raised by members in the House today than criminalising users and putting control into the hands of organised crime. 
The Drug Foundation noted from the Massey University study that 26.7 percent of users under 20 had never been asked for age ID when attempting to buy pills 80 percent of those under 20 had never been refused when trying to buy pills and most users could get pills within 20 minutes. The 2005 Act provided for regulations on where restricted drugs under the new class D category such as BZP currently is could be sold and restrictions on the dosage the packaging and the marketing. This is something that the Greens strongly support. In fact we recommend it and we proposed it at the time. 
The amazing thing is that those regulations have never been made and to the best of our knowledge no enforcement officers have ever been appointed to police the regulations around BZP. No formal monitoring of the industry or enforcement has ever been carried out by this Government. No licensing or training is required before selling the product so many dairies off-licence premises and garages are selling it right now. This is a major concern to public health and health sector workers and it is a concern to us as well. There is extensive point-of-sale advertising but the point is that the Government having failed to make use of any of the regulatory provisions provided to it in the 2005 Act is now saying—surprise surprise—that the status quo is not working and people are selling it to all and sundry under dangerous conditions. Well that is because the Government put no regulations in place. It does not take rocket science to work this stuff out. 
So instead of actually putting regulations in place what will the Government do about party pills? It will ban them. It will criminalise 400000 New Zealanders because it is too lazy to put regulations in place. As I said party pills are being sold in dairies young people are not being asked for ID there is no enforcement and there is no regulation to even stop this. So instead of passing a sledgehammer law that will crack not just the nut we are trying to address but break the whole table as well why would the Government not put in place the regulations that the 2005 legislation provides for—the regulations that the industry is crying out for because it is trying to clean up the cowboys operating in the industry? 
Why would the Government not do that when the evidence suggests that this kind of approach is much more likely to reduce harm from party pills as opposed to criminalising people and giving control to the black market and the organised criminal gangs? Those gangs will not be worried about age restrictions. In fact they will not even be worried about what they put in the party pills. I say to Mr Cosgrove that when we start to see people turning up in emergency departments having taken Ajax because they thought it was a party pill then we will start to talk about harm. This bill is not even about reducing harm is it? It is about another agenda entirely. The Green Party opposes the bill.