King Annette: Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKing Annette: Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 06 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17530. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai): There is no doubt that Parliament wishes to pass the Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill as soon as possible but that does not mean that there are not issues that we ought to raise. I do agree with those who have said that there is no good in going around beating ourselves up on who did what and when. We need to correct the original Psychoactive Substances Act. I think it was a genuine attempt to do something about the issue. We did not get it right and now we are attempting to address it but there are a couple of issues that I want to raise and hopefully when the Minister of Health is in the chair he will be able to help with some of the answers.I have read carefully the regulatory impact statement from the Ministry of Health. It is dated 2 May. In it it talks about animal testing and it says that Cabinet agreed in November to test on animals. That was a decision that was made 4 months after the legislation was passed. It says: “In November Cabinet agreed that animal testing for psychoactive substances should be limited to rodents”. Unfortunately Cabinet members were given poor advice at the time in that they were told that rabbits were rodents as well. In fact rabbits are not rodents. What is interesting though is that when you go on to read this part of the regulatory impact statement it says this: “The Psychoactive Substances Expert Advisory Committee has considered this issue and advises that animal testing using rodents and lagomorphs”—which are rabbits—“would allow the Act to function largely as intended. While it would mean that some products could not be assessed due to the application using data from non-permitted animal species potentially ruling out some low-risk products it would allow robust assessment of the risk of at least some products.”The word in here is “advises”. The ministry was advising Cabinet as recently as 2 May to continue to test on animals including rabbits. The Prime Minister announces on 5 May that the Government no longer will test on any animal. I would like to know what changed the Government’s mind between 2 May and 5 May. Why was it going to happen? Why was it agreed by Cabinet and what made it change its mind? We can guess and I guess there are a number of reasons including the work of Mojo Mathers the work of Trevor Mallard and the 43000 signatures that have appeared very quickly on a petition. I do not believe that this was a principled decision made by the Government. It was a decision made out of the thought that it would lose votes from animal lovers. I am glad that it has made the decision but I have to say there is no evidence that this was a principled decision.The second issue also comes out of the regulatory impact statement. Nothing has really been made of this at present but it very much is in the Minister of Health’s area. The regulatory impact statement tells us that it does not have good data on the number of people who use psychoactive products with interim approval. It has gone on to do an assessment of what services would be needed for people who could be addicted and it has done it by extrapolating from an area that is called the largest provider of alcohol and drug addiction treatment services and that isWaitematā District Health Board. It seems to me that that is a pretty rough way of guessing because it might be the largest provider—and some of that could come from very good work by the district health board—but does it mean it has the most addicted people?My concern is that it has been estimated that between 150 and 200 people “might be sufficiently dependent on these products to require a degree of professional withdrawal management”—and that comes straight out of the regulatory impact statement. My concern is what services will be put in place because there is no doubt there is going to be the need for services come Thursday when the substances are removed and peopledo not have access to them. I am not saying “Don’t do it.” I am saying you have to look at the consequences the ongoing consequences and what is in place to ensure that we give the best possible to people who are addicted.There is a very good email sent to the Hon Maryan Street from one of her constituents raising this issue. A client of the Pascoe Street alcohol and other drugs clinic is saying there will be a significant increase in clients presenting with withdrawal issues and related difficulties. It asks what provision the Government intends to make in order to address the likely increase in demand for addiction services while maintaining—and here is an important point—the present level of services to existing clients. Although there will be a need for these people to have services once we withdraw these illegal highs from the market you cannot do it at the expense of existing clients. They need to have their ongoing support.There have been many reports including out of the Auckland City Mission that say—and I am sure Mr Sabin will be interested in this—that this could be a bigger problem than methamphetamine. The big worry is that at this point—and this was late in April—“At least 90 percent of clients coming throughdetox have used synthetic cannabis.” So even then those who were wanting and needingdetox had been those using synthetic cannabis. The person who is quoted in this story is saying it is the hardest thing they have ever come off. So I do think it would be useful for the House if the Minister was able to tell us what services will be available for these people come Thursday. Will we have enough staff do we need additional resources and will additional resources be made available to assist people coming off these highly addictive and soon-to-be illegal highs? I would feel some comfort if they were able to be answered because there is no doubt that for members of the House it will turn from our banning them to what services are available and the stories of people not getting the services they need in different parts of New Zealand.So it is going to need to be very carefully managed. I think the Minister ought to ask every district health board to provide as soon as possible information about what capacity and facilities they will have to be able to provide services to those who are highly addicted and are going to need to bedetoxed off these illegal highs. Hopefully the Minister will be able to answer those in the Committee stage.