Lees-Galloway Iain: Psychoactive Substances Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: Psychoactive Substances Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 09 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:11815. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North):Part 3 of the Psychoactive Substances Bill does lots of things actually. It is probably the most substantial part of the bill. I want to focus on just a couple of aspects of it and I have no doubt that my colleagues will want to traverse some of the other matters contained in Part 3. Part 3 has clause 50 and clause 50 I think out amongst the public is probably one of the most important clauses in the bill. It is the clause that prohibits and restricts where these substances can actually be sold from. Again this is an example of a really progressive change that was made by the Health Committee. The original bill certainly contained provisions for restricting the sale of substances and for regulation-making powers to determine where these legal high products could be sold from. But we really felt that to give the public the surety that the result would be what they anticipated we needed to bring this into the primary legislation and that is what we have done.I am really really pleased to be able to report to people who might be listening to this that once this bill is passed from the moment this bill becomes law regardless of any transition periods which we will also discuss during Part 3 from day one it will not be legal to sell a psychoactive substance from a dairy from a convenience store from a supermarket from a petrol station or from a liquor store. It will not be legal to sell them from a non-permanent structure—i.e. flea markets or at music festivals or what have you. It will not be legal to sell them from a vehicle. So again they cannot be sold from tents or marquees or vehicles. And actually if we have not managed to capture in the paragraphs of clause 50 all the places that we do not think they should be sold from then we have got clause 50(1)(h) which is: “any other place or premises specified or described in the regulations.” So there is a catch-all paragraph there. So should we find that some clever person finds some other place that is not the type of place that we want these to be sold from then regulations can be made to shut that down quickly.I suppose the question then to be asked is where these products can be sold from. We have got a long list of places that they cannot be sold from. Where can they be sold from?Sue Moroney: Barbecues.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: No not barbecues Sue Moroney. That would be a temporary location so no they could not be sold at barbecues. I am sure that people can have cigars at barbecues but they cannot purchase legal highs.Actually just yesterday I saw a very good example in Associate Minister of Health McClay’s own electorate of exactly the type of place that they could be sold from. I was visiting Rotorua yesterday. I met some excellent people some good Labour supporters in the Rotorua electorate and one of the things I did was—Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Oh you met Steve Chadwick.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: No I did not meet Stevie Chadwick but I understand that she is a shoo-in to be the next Mayor of Rotorua. What I did was to go and visit a couple of places where I had been informed that legal highs were still for sale. I am pleased to say that neither of them was a dairy. It appears that if there were any dairies selling legal highs in Rotorua they have all got out of that business. The places that I went to were exactly the places where I imagine these substances will be for sale in the future. There was absolutely no indication outside the store that legal highs were for sale inside. One of the stores was absolutely clear that it was R18 and it appeared to be enforcing that. I never once saw a youngster go into the store. The name of the store really did not indicate that it was a tobacconist or a retailer of legal highs. When you went in all the tobacco was hidden of course—because that is already a change that we have made—and the legal highs were not actually out on display. There was not any overt marketing. There were other products for sale there but they were the kinds of products that go with the sale of tobacco and other psychoactive substances. There certainly was not any bread there was not any milk and there were not any lollies and as I said I never once saw anybody go through the door who appeared to be under the age of 18. So there is that kind of responsible retailing that I think we want to support.The only question mark that I would have had over that one particular store was its location. That is another change that we have made in Part 3 and that is to give local communities the ability to have a say about where those outlets can be. I imagine there might be some folks in Rotorua who would have a say about where that store was. Although I have to say from what I saw it was exactly the type of responsible retailing that we hope this legislation will support.I just want to quickly talk about clause 51 as well which relates to internet sales. I have to say that I am somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of psychoactive substances being sold on the internet but alcohol is already able to be sold on the internet and actually you can buy tobacco products over the internet as well. Actually the advice that we got was that if we banned internet sales in New Zealand all we would be doing would be opening up overseas-based sites that we would not have jurisdiction over and it would be harder to regulate those overseas-based sites. So internet sales have exactly the same regulations applied to them for retail as permanent stores that you would find in towns.The other area that I want to talk about is the question of possession. This is one that the committee considered at length and I have to say that I think the committee came to what was still an inelegant solution but a solution that everybody around the table was comfortable with—until the Minister came back and told the National Party MPs to revise their position—and that was to say that possession of a substance for someone who is under the age of 18 is an infringement offence. That was on the advice of the police who need it to be an offence in order for them to be able to conduct the type of early intervention measures that they want to be able to conduct. I must say I was not entirely comfortable with it. I am not comfortable with the idea of possession being an offence. It is certainly an improvement that in this legislation possession of a substance—any substance for someone who is under 18 or a non-approved substance for someone who is over 18—is an infringement offence. It does not carry with it a criminal conviction. It is akin really to a speeding fine with a maximum fine of $500. That is an improvement on the possession offences for substances controlled by the Misuse of Drugs Act but still imperfect in my mind. I cannot see how criminalising possession actually helps to achieve the purpose which is to reduce harm.I propose that we go back to the position that the select committee reached which is to accept—uncomfortably—the infringement offence for people under the age of 18 possessing any psychoactive substance but to remove the offence for anyone over 18 being in possession of an unapproved substance not only because I do not think that it helps reach that purpose of reducing harm but also because it is going to be absolutely impossible to enforce. The whole point is that the police should be able to give an on-the-spot fine. It is going to be impossible to give an on-the-spot fine if the police officer takes possession of the psychoactive substance because they are not going to know whether it is an approved substance or an unapproved substance and to test the substance to find out whether it is an approved substance or an unapproved substance is going to take several months. It is not possible for a police officer to deliver an on-the-spot fine for being in possession of an unapproved substance because it will be a considerable amount of time before anybody knows whether it was or was not an approved substance. The rigmarole that people are going to have to go through to prove this does not I think relate to what we are trying to achieve here which is just a simple on-the-spot early-intervention fine.So I hope that members will support my Supplementary Order Paper which would remove clause 63 and remove the offence of being in possession of a non-approved substance. We should be focused on the manufacturers and the suppliers. It is absolutely right for there to be heavy penalties for supplying or manufacturing an unapproved substance. That is where we should be focusing our attention. That is where we should be focusing the police resources. There is absolutely nothing to be gained from criminalising young people who are in possession of an unapproved substance.