Wall LouisaLOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you Madam Chair. As the chair of the Health Committee it's been my absolute pleasure to shepherd through the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill and can I firstly acknowledge the officials in the House tonight both from the Ministry of Health and police who did a fantastic job. I think it's incumbent on me actually to talk about why we've reclassified AMB-FUBINACA and 5F-ADB as class A drugs and by definition they are very high-risk illicit drugs. We've seen fit to include these synthetic cannabinoids within that definition because since June 2017 over 50 New Zealanders have lost their lives.What this piece of legislation is attempting to do is those two things and I'll highlight those. Firstly we are and have reclassified to enable the police and customs to have greater search and seizure powers. Why have we done that? Because we need to disrupt supply. We need to reduce the availability of these drugs to minimise harm to the public. We also are very clear that we do want to punish those who are involved in this illicit drug trade but from our perspective they must be the importers the manufacturers and the distributors of those particular products.I was a bit neglectful to also acknowledge the National members of the Health Committee because in fact they recommended the amendments set out in our report but they just don't support the bill and therein lies the other aspect of the bill I want to highlight and it is clause 6 which amends section 7 of the primary legislation. Essentially the first part of the bill is about punishing those we want to punish. The second aspect is about helping those that we think need help. So who are those people? Well actually they're the addicts. They're the people that do possess and use these products. As you'll see in amended clause 6 new section 7(5) To avoid doubt it is affirmed that there is a discretion to prosecute for an offence against subsection (1)(a)". Subsection (1)(a) by definition is the possession and use of controlled drugs and I quote it's about "procure or have in his possession or consume smoke or otherwise use any controlled drug;".So what are we talking about? We're talking about individuals who procure—that means they've obtained an illicit substance; they've bought it. They possess which means they have it on themselves; they hold it as property. And they consume which means they use it. That's what this section is doing. So call it a de facto decriminalisation; we call it helping people who are addicts. The Minister has seen fit—and I do want to acknowledge our coalition partners New Zealand First—that in clause 6 new section 7(5) we have now added to the end of that particular amended section "to the public interest" under Supplementary Order Paper 288 in the Minister's name.So what is the public interest? Well by definition the public interest is the welfare or wellbeing of the general public. So the question we need to ask ourselves is: is it better for all of us that those people who procure possess or consume these illicit or very high-risk illicit drugs—is it in our interest—get the help that they need? That is what's contained in clause 6 new section 7(5) and (6) "whether a health-centred or therapeutic approach would be more beneficial." because the current opportunity cost to that option is we have 11 percent of our current prison population. These are based on figures from 30 June 2019. There's 9969 people in prison and 11 percent of those are in prison because of drug offences. Not all of them would be for—Hon Michael Woodhouse: Seven of them—seven.LOUISA WALL: No it's 11. You should have a look at the latest stats Michael; I can send you the link if you'd like to see it.So we are very clear on this side that it's in the public interest for those people not to be in prison. It's in the public interest for those people to get the help that they deserve and that's why this section is vital—vital—to this piece of legislation because it says to the public "The people that need to be punished—we will punish them. The people that need to be helped—we will help them." Thank you."