Scott Lynda: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee Third Reading 
Scott Lynda: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:626;Page:21499] 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 Part 3 deals with a new class of restricted substance. It puts in place the same sorts of regulations that we currently have around tobacco and alcohol: restriction to those aged 18 and over health warnings on products advertising controls and of course penalties if people break the law. And there will be restrictions around what is good manufacturing practice for these pills. 
The Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs said that benzylpiperazine is not a drug that causes serious harm. I think that drug was a cattle drench to start off with; I think that is where it originated. There are people out there who will use all sorts of things. The minute we regulate for it there will be something else. We are not just talking about benzylpiperazine. That is why National has concerns—because in the future other drugs other substances will be used. Because there will be other substances we need a process that we feel is robust and has been well considered. 
I ask members to think about the other things that are used. Datura is something the effect of which I as a doctor dealt with just about every year when young people who had taken it would come in to the accident and emergency department. Datura produces atropine. It makes people slightly crazy makes their eyes dilate and makes them very hot but it gives them a high and every year people poison themselves on this drug. The plant grows around New Zealand and people are sometimes stupid enough to try to manufacture a psychoactive substance from it and take it. I am not sure if there have been deaths from this drug but many people have certainly got very close to dying from it. Then there are magic mushrooms which people go and pick. We hope they do not manage to eat death cap mushrooms and completely ruin their livers so that they need liver transplants. 
People will go and find other substances to use. It would be better if we were looking at the reasons why our young people feel they have to take those sorts of things to have a good time. I guess that is one of the reasons why there is concern about these party pills. Even though the expert advisory committee said these pills carry a low risk of harm they condition our young people into thinking they have to take a pill in order to have a good time. Some of it may just be a placebo effect. We know in medicine that in 30 percent of cases where people take a sugar pill believing it will do something good for them it actually does because of what is called the placebo effect. That young people get into this mindset that they cannot have a good time—that they cannot get a natural high that they cannot enjoy an evening out—without taking something to help them do so is I think of great concern. 
We have to ask ourselves why we have such a high youth suicide rate why we have such poor statistics in relation to our youth. I believe that some of it is to do with their low self-esteem and that that is why they feel they have to use alcohol to loosen up a bit or have to take a pill to make themselves more sociable. Those are some of the issues we need to deal with—along with the breakdown of the family and the social decay that make these children feel that that is what they have to do. 
Although the National Party has concerns about this area and would like to see restrictions we believe that Part 3 should have come in as a separate bill. We could then have called for submissions on it so that we hit the target that we want. We have seen time and time again legislation with good intentions—and I think Part 3 has good intentions—that misses its target and we end up coming back to it to make amendments to change things. That actually makes things more difficult not better. 
Benzylpiperazine does need restriction. This bill will pass today and we will see that restriction put in place. But the minute that substance is restricted there will be something else being used. We need to know whether the process that is being set up by this bill will actually work. All that Part 3 does is restrict advertising restrict the sale of substances to under-18-year-olds and make sure that there is good manufacturing practice. That is another concern. It is not just the main substance in the tablet; it is what gets puts in with it that as we have seen with some health products can cause harm.