Hague Kevin: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Hague Kevin: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:674;Page:20058] 
KEVIN HAGUE (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson. Nga mihi nui ki a koe me te Whare hoki. I want to begin in the usual way by thanking officials from the Ministry of Health who worked with the Health Committee on consideration of the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill officials from the Office of the Clerk who serviced the select committee and officials from the Parliamentary Counsel Office. I acknowledge the very many thoughtful submissions that the select committee received and I also acknowledge the non-partisan way in which the select committee went about its work. 
It would be great would it not if we were able to have a cross-party approach to dealing with drug issues. It seemed to me from time to time on the select committee that we were not far away from that. So it is sad in some ways that in this debate I need to speak in opposition to the bill. That is because of two clauses. I also want to comment on the indication that the Minister the Hon Peter Dunne gave last evening about his intention to introduce a Supplementary Order Paper in the Committee stage. 
The first issue I want to draw attention to—and it will be no surprise to the House because many speakers have referred to this provision—is clause 4 which sets out to increase the range of offences associated with utensils. It extends the range of items in relation to which offences exist and it extends the range of offences themselves. In particular there is the worrying extension of the definition of “utensil” to include “identifiable component of a pipe or other utensil”. 
The Health Committee received no evidence that the changes that this clause would bring about would reduce drug use at all. Instead we received many submissions to the effect that harm would be caused. We heard that the new provisions would not reduce drug use. We heard that the utensils provisions might provide a minor inconvenience to those importing and selling them but that they would be very likely to respond in short order with small changes of behaviour that would evade the new law with the result that we would be no further ahead. The utensils provisions are also likely to be applied unevenly based on assumptions about intent. 
Some very interesting submissions were made to the committee. They demonstrated that plumbing fittings could be used in drug-taking utensils so the enforcement of the law would require enforcement officers to make judgment calls about the intended use. That seems to me to be an inappropriate way of going about making law. The potential for this same behaviour to be legal or illegal depending on who does it suggests strongly that the law has been miscast. 
As my colleague Kris Faafoi has pointed out the select committee heard from the Drug Foundation and many others that the use of utensils typically reduces the amount of harm associated with drug use and therefore provisions in law that reduce the ability of cannabis smokers to use such utensils may well result in increased harm.  
In summary I say that the provisions seem unlikely to achieve anything useful. Indeed they seem somewhat likely to increase the harm associated with drug taking. They also seem to be an unhelpful distraction from the Law Commission’s report. They seem to be tinkering around the edges of New Zealand’s drug laws at a time when the Law Commission has been undertaking a major review of New Zealand’s drug laws and making a comprehensive set of recommendations to this House. Why on earth are we making this small tinkering change when we have before us something that would be a very productive use of this House’s time?  
Clause 6 has also attracted much debate. This is the clause that sets out to reclassify ephedrine and pseudoephedrine as class B2 drugs meaning that medicines containing those substances could be supplied only with a prescription from a doctor. There seems no reason to oppose the reclassification of ephedrine. We were told that this drug essentially has no therapeutic value or almost no therapeutic value. On the other hand pseudoephedrine is widely used and it is probably used by members of this House. It has therapeutic value for many people. 
The select committee asked for but could not be given any evidence of the extent to which pseudoephedrine purchased from retail pharmacies has been used for methamphetamine manufacture. The closest we got to it was Sir Peter Gluckman’s educated guess I suppose. None the less the Green Party accepts that this source does play a role in the manufacture of methamphetamine. 
However we are persuaded by the evidence received from the Pharmaceutical Society of New Zealand—and members should remember that this organisation represents the professional expertise and interests of pharmacists—which told us that alternatives to pseudoephedrine were not as effective. Indeed it challenged members of the select committee who had used the alternatives to pseudoephedrine to contradict it if we wished to but not one member of the select committee did so. 
The universal experience I think is that these alternatives do not work as well as pseudoephedrine. So the change that is contemplated in this bill will represent a substantial reduction in the effectiveness of the therapeutic value that New Zealanders across the board gain from the availability of this drug. 
The bill would require people with infectious diseases to visit their general practitioners in large numbers in order to get access to effective treatment with the result that many more of these diseases will be passed on and there will be more morbidity and more sickness. That seems to us to be a disproportionate harm. The Pharmaceutical Society offered several alternatives which would stop pseudoephedrine-containing medicines being available over the counter but allow them to be available from pharmacies without the need for a prescription. That certainly seems to be the more sensible way to proceed. 
Lastly I come to the Supplementary Order Paper that the Minister gave notice of during his contribution yesterday in respect of synthetic cannabinoids and related herbal highs. Most New Zealanders would share the Minister’s concerns about these drugs but we want to draw attention to the fact that the Supplementary Order Paper the Minister proposes has not been put in front of the New Zealand public for submissions and represents a very substantial departure from the scope of this bill. 
We believe that the correct approach—and I challenge the Minister to do this now—is for the Minister to table his Supplementary Order Paper today and move that it be referred back to the select committee so that submissions from the public and interested parties can be sought. Before this bill comes back to the House in essentially 3 weeks’ time there is time for a public process that would enable the public to have its say. 
It seems to us to be bad lawmaking for the Supplementary Order Paper to be put forward during the Committee stage and for the public to be excluded from a debate on those provisions. When people had the opportunity to make submissions earlier they could not possibly have imagined that the provisions in the Supplementary Order Paper would be in the bill that went forward to its third reading. In summary I say that we oppose this bill’s second reading. We invite the Minister to make those changes and table his Supplementary Order Paper today.