Mathers Mojo: Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMathers Mojo: Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 06 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17516. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MOJO MATHERS (Green): I will be upfront. Today we had a difficult decision at caucus. This Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill has been difficult for us because on the one hand the Green Party totally welcomes the Government’s U-turn on the animal testing of these drugs. In particular I am thrilled that the Government has finally adopted in substance the amendment that I put up on the Psychoactive Substances Bill last year which ruled out the use of information from animal testing to support an application. I note that the Government voted then against that amendment and I know that thousands of New Zealanders are celebrating now because the Government has finally done a U-turn on this decision. But on the other hand we know that the other clauses in this bill around prohibition of the sale of these drugs will create a dangerous black market in these drugs. Later today my colleague and health spokesperson Kevin Hague will speak further on our concerns around these provisions. So after careful deliberation between the two fairly different clauses in the bill we have decided to abstain from voting but we do want to affirm our total support for the Government decision to back down on animal testing of party pills and legal highs.This decision is absolutely the right one. We are thrilled that the Government has finally listened to the tens of thousands of New Zealanders who raised their voices against the testing of these products on animals. The depth of public feeling on this issue was highlighted last year when more than 60000 people signed a petition calling for animal testing of party pills to be ruled out. People in their tens of thousands have marched signed petitions emailed MPs and written letters and finally just over a year later the Government has got it: animal testing is an issue that is not going to go away. The Government decision to rule out animal testing is morally and ethically the right one. It will ensure that thousands of animals will not be subject to the extreme suffering that is involved in toxicology testing.I want to talk about the process that happened last year when the Psychoactive Substances Bill came up because at that time many animal welfare organisations and people put in considerable time and effort to write substantive submissions on that bill on the issue of animal testing. They did this in good faith on the advice of the Ministerin charge of the bill Peter Dunne and Ministry of Health officials that the best way for concerns around animal testing to be addressed was via the submissions process. Unbelievably after all this effort their submissions were ruled out of order rejected by the chair of the Health Committee as not relevant and returned to them. These people were devastated that their democratic right to be heard had been rejected.In response the Green Party held our own hearings to hear the evidence that the select committee did not get to hear. The information that was presented at these hearings was well researched and directly relevant to the substance of this bill and should never have been excluded. We wrote a report that we presented to the Health Committee that summarised these submissions and we concluded that a clause should be added to this bill ruling out the use of information from animal testing to support an application. I put up an amendment doing just that.Ruling out animal testing is the best decision in the best interests of both animals and people. The reality is that the results of animal testing are notoriously unreliable. Because of this in 2008 the United States Environmental Protection Agency the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration started a process to replace all toxicology testing on animals with non-animal tests because these tests produce results that are more relevant to humans and therefore more reliable. They are able to do this because the technology and safety testing have come a long way in the last 20 years. Despite what a previous speaker said the alternatives to animal testing are many and include in vitro human cell line studies computer models micronucleus assays in vitro absorption tests and so on.We cannot claim to be world leaders in animal welfare when other countries are so far ahead of us. The United Kingdom has a ban on animal testing of recreational substances and this includes tobacco and alcohol on the grounds that such testing of recreational products is unethical and immoral. This ban has helped drive much of the development and research into non-animal testing of drugs. They have also confirmed directly with us that their ban will also apply to psychoactive substances when these drugs are intended for recreational use.One reason why animal testing continues to be carried out for most toxicology testing in New Zealand is that many of the non-animal tests are more expensive than animal tests. For example we heard at the hearings evidence from someone who wanted a product tested and when they took it to be tested for safety they were told it would cost $10000 to test it using animals. When she said she did not want to use animals she was then informed it would cost $30000 to test it using non-animal tests rather than those tests. So cost is the main driver of using animal tests in toxicology testing in New Zealand despite what people will tell you to the opposite. Basically our argument all along has been that decisions around safety testing should not be based on protecting the profit margins of the party pill industry.Just prior to the Psychoactive Substances Bill being debated last year someone sent me an undercover video of toxicology testing being undertaken on beagles in the United States. Although it was not the most gruesome animal testing video that I have seen it was definitely the saddest. Seeing these beautiful affectionate animals barely out of the puppy stage confined alone in bleak stainless steel cages forced to ingest drugs every day that made them feel sick and then killed for dissection was gut-wrenching and utterly heartbreaking. Make no mistake toxicology testing on animals causes a really high level of suffering. Once you have seen what has happened to animals in toxicology testing you cannot un-see it. This video confirmed for me what I have always believed—that testing for trivial purposes is utterly and completely indefensible. I know that there are thousands of decent New Zealanders out there who share that conviction. This is what has driven us to march in the streets and drives our passion. The great thingabout prohibiting animal testing of recreational drugs is that it will drive innovation and uptake of non-animal testing in New Zealand something that needs to happen and is long overdue. The animals deserve it from us.