Browning Steffan: Psychoactive Substances Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrowning Steffan: Psychoactive Substances Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 09 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:11813. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STEFFAN BROWNING (Green):I would just like to take a short call on this Part 2 of the Psychoactive Substances Bill. It again touches on the animal testing and when someone is going for their licence for a particular substance. Again I would just like to reiterate some of the aspects around that and the fact that some producers and manufacturers will still push for animal testing. One person was quoted $10000 for testing a product on rats compared with a $30000 cost for in vitro testing. Clearly there is going to be that level of pressure when they are going for their licence for a particular drug to do it on rats. I would say that because of the nature of these products if it is that big a difference if it is $20000 then that is too bad because I am sure with the nature of these drugs that they will make that up very quick—pronto as such.One other thing that came up during the submissions that I heard with Mojo Mathers was that the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee and the chair of that in fact in this country and her equivalent in the United Kingdom showed that the UK was banning animal testing also on psychoactive substances because they were already banning it on cosmetics. So it is not in a way that we would be frontrunners but that other places are already taking the lead in that sense. What would be world leading would be this total combination of what we are doing around psychoactive substances and the fact that we would also have that high level of animal welfare at the same time.The New Zealand Anti-Vivisection Society brought very expert evidence as to what would be being used in the testing to get the licences through. It went through a whole number of things. It used different products that are already being used in pharmaceuticals and it showed how they were being done using different viable human cells to achieve it. The society went through it with oral toxicity if it is going to be swallowed it did it with inhalation if it is going to be a smoked product and I think there were some dermatologicals as well. It went into the geno-toxicity and the carcinogenicity. We really should have had that almost word for word in front of the Health Committee so that when we look at this stuff we are looking to see how that is going to be managed and that it would be fully fully considered. I am hoping that there have been some changes in the Committee and I am hoping that there will be support for Mojo Mather’s Supplementary Order Paper 260 as we go through this.One other point and my colleague mentioned it just before is that it is very very important that this bill is not a Trojan Horse for prohibition. I was well aware in my youth in my 20s of what the black market around drugs was about. I saw the hideous stuff when heroin was very available when a number of other substances were very available but they were on the black market and there was a lack of information out there around those and the way that whole issue was worked. This actually gives a chance to manage substances in what we call a more responsible way. It is probably not the be-all and end-all of how that is done but at least it is a step in the right direction.I will leave it at that. Again as I say I support the Associate Minister of Health’s move in the statement earlier that animal testing will not be used where there are alternatives. Those alternatives will be thrust under your nose I am quite sure frequently from now on. Thank you very much.