Hutchison Paul: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Hutchison Paul: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:674;Page:20184] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Chair for the opportunity to speak on this important amendment to the Misuse of Drugs Act. The Hon Peter Dunne certainly deserves congratulations on bringing in his Supplementary Order Paper that will effectively ban something like 43 synthetic cannabinoids that are known on the New Zealand market at present. I have no doubt that the mums and dads of New Zealand will breathe a significant sigh of relief when they hear of this legislation. 
There is no question that the availability of these synthetic cannabinoids has become more and more apparent as the year has gone on and particularly in the last few months. I have been absolutely surprised at what I would view as the irresponsibility of many retailers in the way they sell these products flagrantly in areas where there are a lot of children present close to schools etc. In my view the manufacturers of these synthetic cannabinoids are on the whole very cunning and ruthless and will stop at nothing to make money out of this range of products let alone stopping at nothing to entrap young New Zealanders into becoming dependent on them. So this interim measure is indeed an extremely important one. 
I well remember Matt Bowden whom we have seen on TV recently appearing before the Health Committee some years ago and saying how he felt that good manufacturing practice was so important to him yet we have seen these products come into New Zealand and be manufactured with additives of prescription medicines within them. Now that is clearly not a case of having good manufacturing practice. I do not believe that we cannot trust this spectrum of manufacturers who are so high and mighty in terms of their views on this issue in New Zealand. In fact I think they need to be absolutely sidelined. 
The Hon Peter Dunne’s Supplementary Order Paper will allow time to implement the Law Commission’s recommendations to legislate that the manufacturers of these psychoactive drugs will have to prove that they are safe. I must add that if they are psychoactive substances that are smoked we learnt during the submissions from the Ministry of Health that just about every product that is smoked or inhaled has a carcinogenic effect. It will be very very hard to prove safety. So there is no doubt that this has to be done very carefully and as the Minister pointed out the manufacturers will use every mechanism available to them to dream up some new way of presenting these drugs to the New Zealand public. 
Several years ago there was an amendment that introduced a rapid mechanism to try to combat the fact that they would always be trying to be one step ahead of the legislators. I think that that is almost impossible to combat and it proved impossible for that legislation. Consequently the suggestion that the Law Commission has come up with is entirely relevant and I am sure that the Minister will pursue those recommendations relentlessly so that hopefully we not only reduce the input of these drugs but also do everything possible to minimise harm.