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:21525] 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 I rise with a little bit of nostalgia which was created by Steve Chadwick when she mentioned that this bill will probably be the last major piece of legislation I will speak on in this House. I have thoroughly enjoyed being a member of the Health Committee. It has been one of the best parts of the time I have spent in Parliament. I will have my valedictory speech in which to say all these things but I want to say now that working with Steve Chadwick was great. The members of the Health Committee have always tried very hard to work across parties to get good legislation for New Zealand. Of course at times one does not agree with a political part of a bill but most of the time we have worked very well together. I have thoroughly enjoyed that time. 
Steve Chadwick said that National had a confused position on this bill. It is not confused at all. The position has been very clear. We support this bill. We certainly support the affirmative resolution process to be used for class A B and C drugs. What we did not find acceptable was the way the Supplementary Order Paper was included as a new part Part 3 “Restricted substances”. We know that this area has been complex. The select committee and the advisers grappled with it to try to find a way to fit it into the bill. Even the Associate Minister of Health acknowledged that it has not been a good process and that we need a stand-alone bill. So I do not think there is anything unclear about what we have been saying today. It has been very clear indeed. 
What concerns me is the Greens’ contributions to the debate on this bill. I was on the inquiry into cannabis and I remember very clearly what Nandor Tanczos had to say during that inquiry. I see that he is supporting the process to regulate benzylpiperazine. Mr Tanczos was associated with a store in Queen Street where these drugs are sold. He knows a great deal about them. Yes he wants the industry to come under legal auspices whereby it is controlled because that would take other operators out of the business leaving those who are legally selling these drugs to over-18-year-olds to make more money. He wanted cannabis regulated in the same way. He wanted it decriminalised and made available to those over-18-year-olds. 
Nandor Tanczos 
: That’s untrue. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT 
: I heard that argument many times. What worries me is that the Greens supported Labour during the time of the cannabis inquiry and we know that the Green Party gets some of its vote from the legalise cannabis group. That party will continue to push for a softening of the law around cannabis. 
Mr Tanczos has changed his mind. He has become a dad and I think that does change people. When one becomes a parent one starts seeing the world a little differently— 
Simon Power 
: Through sleepy eyes. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT 
: Yes but I think he already had those. As parents we start thinking about what the effects would be on our children. There is still a great deal of fear out in the community that a Labour-Green coalition would push to have a slackening of the drug laws. 
Regarding the expeditious scheduling that we see in Part 3 there was concern expressed at the Health Committee that cannabis could be moved from the A B and C classification on to the list of restricted substances—that this legislation would provide a mechanism for that. Mr Tanczos talked about having the experts involved. We have the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs advising the Minister at this point. The membership of the committee could be changed. The membership could be changed to comprise people who have a much more liberal view of drugs in this country. That would mean that we would see a loosening and a reduction in classification. 
If that happened I would be extremely worried as would most mums and dads in this country. We would not want to see any change to the law around cannabis. I sat on that select committee inquiry. We went from one end of the country to the other it cost a huge amount of money and we came to the conclusion that there should be no change. But that was not the position of the Greens right the way though the inquiry. 
National supports adding a Ministry of Justice member to the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs. That was an oversight when we debated the first amendment Act. The process was set up by Wyatt Creech and was brought in because of the Ecstasy and Fantasy issues at the time. Those drugs had been introduced into New Zealand and the people who produced them changed the chemical structure just slightly in order to avoid the law. Everybody agreed that we needed a very fast process—we wanted it to be a 1-month process—to be able to put those drugs on to the schedule and to stop those who wished to prey on our young people and cause their deaths all for the sake of money. 
We fully support this bill which provides for the regulation of the precursors of P methamphetamine. People can be prosecuted if they bring in large quantities of cold remedies which have ephedrine and pseudoephedrine in them to try to set up meth labs and produce P. P is the most serious drug issue facing the country at the moment. There has been a lot of effort to crack down on it. Just one tablet can cause significant harm. We saw a similar wave of the use of LSD in the 1970s. People saw too many of their friends end up in psychiatric hospitals due to the use of that medication. Talented young New Zealanders’ lives were ruined. Some survived some committed suicide but many had significant mental damage. Hopefully people will see enough of their friends around them significantly damaged by P to ensure that once again it will not become a drug of choice amongst our young people and they will realise the harm that just one tablet can do to them if they are susceptible. 
The longitudinal studies that are being done on our young people in Christchurch and Dunedin are interesting. The Dunedin study is especially interesting as it shows that genetic precursors mean that some people are much more susceptible to drugs and alcohol abuse when adverse events happen. One has to ask why some people get through them and others do not. It has been shown that the genetic predisposition of some people plus an adverse event—that is nature plus nurture or the environment they are in plus their genetic make-up—are what make some people much much more susceptible. 
We fully support making sure that ephedrine and pseudoephedrine cannot be brought into the country in large supply. We support the change to the onus of proof in terms of people who have needles in their possession to improve the needle exchange programme. We will be voting for the bill in its third reading stage.