Reti ShaneDr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. This is a historic day. Today New Zealand commences down the path of cannabis reform. Today cannabis reform in New Zealand will be led by David Clark as the Pied Piper with clearly an empty music sheet. The Greens dancing aimlessly around—they get cannabis legalisation and New Zealand First slavishly bringing up the rear trumped by the Greens and not understanding the harm they will do by agreeing to smoked loose-leaf cannabis in public.New Zealanders overwhelmingly want medicinal cannabis as another tool in the tool box as another medicine to ease their suffering. They want a high-quality medicine that is medicinal cannabis. However New Zealanders did not sign up and are not signing up to cannabis legalisation by stealth. The referendum is the forum for that. Two schemes are created by this bill: a temporary and a permanent medicinal cannabis scheme. The temporary scheme is presented as a compassionate measure for people who have progressive disease debilitating disease chronic disease and near end of life.Unfortunately it falls far wide from the mark from what it seeks to do. The temporary scheme is a rushed scheme where politicians have decided which conditions are in and out. This should be left to doctors and experts not politicians and in our hands we would do this. This is a rushed scheme that Medical Cannabis Awareness New Zealand says will not provide relief for people with severe debilitating conditions like Dravet syndrome. This is a rushed scheme where procurement is illegal but possession is legal. In what other legislation do we turn such a blind eye to illegal actions and worse that it should be a drug-related blind eye? The temporary scheme is a rushed scheme that will take some time to set up as a permanent scheme. We could've helped with that. With our legislation we could've hurried it along. In fact I'd contend that we could have the full medicinal cannabis scheme up in the same time it will take to enact and enable the temporary scheme. My predictions for the temporary scheme are these: (1) doctors will find the criteria hard to apply and will not participate (2) police will struggle mightily to determine who can and who cannot legitimately use cannabis and (3) the workflow will be unworkable for doctors and police.The second part of the scheme is the permanent medicinal cannabis scheme. The only thing we know about this scheme is that it will allow the smoking of loose-leaf cannabis in public. We oppose this and deride the lack of details. Talking to the lack of details an army of workers at the ministry—no details no framework no skeleton; just leave it to unnamed officials to work it out over the next few years. No we will not do that. The National Party will not do that.Medicinal cannabis is a sensitive issue that demands parliamentary oversight industry feedback and community consultation. Unfortunately there is nothing to oversee nothing for industry to talk to and no community consultation on an empty scheme. How is industry supposed to move forward without details? How are prescribers to update and manage workflow without details? How are dispensers to change their work environment without details? We offered a plan. Our bill provided all these details which we were happy to share but the Government said no.The smoking of loose-leaf cannabis is cannabis legalisation by stealth and there is no question that it is in this bill. Both in written questions and in the committee of the whole House the Minister of Health was specifically asked these questions to which he replied The bill will not limit the form that cannabis will be dispensed in." Clearly loose leaf is in the temporary scheme and in the permanent scheme. Loose leaf is not a medicine. We oppose the smoking of loose leaf. We oppose the smoking of loose leaf in public. We offered in committee again the Minister the opportunity to at least restrict the smoking of loose leaf so that it didn't occur in public. He was not interested in that. We oppose the normalisation of loose leaf in New Zealand society and we oppose the lack of quality and safety with loose leaf. I say again: loose leaf is not a medicine.We offered a plan: a licensing regime for cultivation processing and manufacture; a licensing regime that describes fit and proper persons; a licensing regime that said no to growing cannabis close to residential areas; a licensing regime that treated medicinal cannabis as just another Medsafe medicine with stage 0 1 and 2 clinical trials and fast-track approvals. We offered a prescribing regime where doctors and nurses decide eligibility and not politicians where medicinal cannabis is a medicine based on science and therapeutic benefit. We offered a dispensing plan where medicines are treated as pharmacy-only medicines and dispensed by pharmacists as happens in the US. We offered certainty. We created a framework for affordability and accessibility and this Government said no. Their egos could not get them past the media statements that said our bill is clearly better than the Government's and that the Government's bill was legislative laziness. As a consequence we have before us today a bill that legalises cannabis and is empty of detail.Here are my predictions: (1) loose-leaf cannabis will be smoked in public under the guise of medical need; (2) an already horrendously delayed medicinal cannabis scheme will not be deployed for several years—the regulations may have a one-year requirement for enactment but deployment will take much longer—(3) while we wait for the details New Zealand's fledgling cannabis industry will lose market share to Australia and some will go under; (4) GPs will have no part of a medicinal cannabis scheme that is not based on sound science and therapeutic benefit; (5) GPs will have no part of a medicinal cannabis scheme that takes no account of their workflow; and finally (6) police will have substantial challenges monitoring casual cannabis use from medical need.Exactly what mandate does the coalition Government have to legalise cannabis? This is the province of a referendum not back-door legislation pretending to be medical need. What is not collaborated and bipartisan runs the risk of being undone by future Governments. We sought to collaborate. We placed all our work out into public domain for scrutiny and comment. We met several times with Chlöe Swarbrick from the Greens and I thank her for that collaboration. We met with New Zealand First and pointed out our concerns with smoked loose-leaf cannabis.Be in no doubt then that today the Greens are legalising cannabis by stealth. New Zealand First are allowing the smoking of loose-leaf cannabis. Drug addiction services in Kaikohe and Kaitāia remember: New Zealand First agreed to smoked loose leaf in your communities and Labour are tick-boxing a 100-day election promise to placate the Greens. Today then the Greens trump New Zealand First. The Greens have hoodwinked New Zealand First into allowing the smoking of loose-leaf cannabis in public and they will all answer to the electorate for that.I want to conclude by thanking the National Party and the National Party caucus for understanding the need for a comprehensive quality medicinal cannabis scheme and for their support. As independent commentators have noted this is a big step for the National Party and together we took that step with dignity precision and hard work.Finally then the work we have done on our bill is informed by best practice from a number of people and a number of organisations who I'd like to acknowledge. I'd like to acknowledge from Massachusetts Health Commissioner Kay Doyle and David Blakeman from New Hampshire Senator Jeff Woodburn and Health Commissioner Emeritus Nick Toumpas; from Colorado the Director of Marijuana Co-ordination Emeritus Andrew Freedman; in New York Dr Howard Zucker the Commissioner of Health and his medicinal Cannabis team; more locally the Pharmacy Guild of New Zealand and the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners. I'd like to thank Shane Le Brun from Medicinal Cannabis Awareness New Zealand for his wisdom in consultation and in helping us understand better some of the finer details of this legislation. Finally I'd like to acknowledge Sarah Gwynn from the drafting office for exemplary work and attention to detail.And so today this Government is legalising cannabis by stealth. Let us take great care. Thank you.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Before I call the next speaker can I just remind the member who's resumed their seat of the Speaker's ruling around reading of speeches. I didn't interrupt but this is a debating chamber and the Speaker has made it quite clear he expects people not to read their speeches."