Banks John: Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBanks John: Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 06 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17518. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon JOHN BANKS (Leader—ACT): This is a surreal time in the history of this Parliament. If we were to close our eyes for a moment and think back 8 months there was a clamour in this House to enable the importers and the retailers of these mind-altering chemicals to have an opportunity to go out and exploit the vulnerable the poor the lonely and the dispossessed and to sell them these dangerous mind-altering chemicals for a profit and watch them slowly and progressively in front of their families and in their communities go mad—go mad.It was TV3’sCampbell Live programme that by instalments showed every member of this Parliament the madness of the decision that was taken 8 months ago by 120 members of this House to give this social experiment a burl. It has been a failure. The process we are going through this afternoon is a time-honoured process of dead rat swallowing. We got it wrong. I voted against it but we got it wrong. I saidtaiho but we got it wrong. I said that it was a crazy thing to do but we got it wrong. This Parliament got it wrong. It got it wrong. It got it badly wrong. Night after night on TV3 at 7 o’clock we saw the madness of what this Parliament did.The greed-driven drug importers and retailers were making a fortune and many of our young and vulnerable people were behaving like fruit-loops—like fruit-loops. So I say again in this Parliament today that we have got to get it right. We owe it to these young people who are lonely depressed out of work out of hope and looking for an opportunity to refresh their lives and give themselves some sense of worth. But taking drugs like mind-altering substances will not do it and I am stating that on the record in Parliament today.It is a bad idea to take these substances. It is a bad idea to drink far too much alcohol. It is a bad idea to smoke cigarettes. It is very expensive. In my long life I have never met anyone who has had an addiction to drugs alcohol tobacco or to any mind-altering substances—I have not met one person in my long life—who has said that it has made a difference that they feel good about it and that it has changed their life for the good. Not one person has ever said that to me. So we should proceed with this bill the Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill today.I suppose on a lighter note I can thank Moonbeam the cat—the Prime Minister’s cat. That beautiful animal runs around his home in Parnell in the centre of my electorate and when the Prime Minister comes home from work each week he looks at that cat and says that he could not possibly allow that animal to be tortured to death in the name of and at the altar of a mind-altering drug experiment. Coming back he said that it cannot happen to beagle puppies and that it will not and that it cannot happen and should not happen to rabbits and now it will not. New Zealand is now saying no to animal testing for these mind-altering fun drugs which is exactly what I—and to be fair some of my colleagues—begged this Parliament to do 8 months ago. The numbers did not fall our way and the Mad Hatter’s tea party began.This Parliament should apologise to the young and the vulnerable the sick and the poor and those people looking for a high in life when there is so much low. We should be apologising to them today for giving them and selling them a fraud. Taking drugs to make you feel better is a fraud and we in this Parliament should be role models and saying no to these mind-altering drugs. If these substances have to be tested to make sure that they are safe and whether they are necessary—and they are not—then we should never ever sacrifice any animal at the altar of an experiment to try to prove that they are safe. The bottom line is—and everyone knows this in this House—that these substances will never be safe. These substances will never be safe.The original bill was well intentioned—I will gave that much credit to this House—in that it sought to ensure that psychoactive substances are safe but it was deeply flawed—deeply flawed. All the assumptions were deeply flawed. Every single member of Parliament who voted for it should stand up this afternoon and say that they got it wrong. I am prepared as a member of this House to say that I voted against it but we got it wrong. So we can put it right. The Prime Minister took leadership on the weekend and said that the Government is going to get it right so full marks to the Prime Minister. It is 8 months overdue but full marks to the Prime Minister.So what have we got here in the Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill? Animals cannot be tested in this country to prove that these things are safe. You will never prove that these things are safe as long as the cows start walking home because they will never be safe. We should say in this Parliament today that these are dangerous substances and they will never be safe no matter what experiment you use and what jurisdiction it comes from. They will never be safe.As for evidence of harm—there is plenty of evidence of harm. We do not need to sacrifice beagle puppies on a gurney with their ears stapled to the ground and gas being pumped into them until they get to the LD50—half of them expire—to know that these substances are dangerous. We all know they are dangerous. The Assistant Speaker knows they are dangerous. Every member of Parliament knows they are dangerous. Our fine Minister of Health knows they are dangerous. We are taking them off the shelf. I know that there will be people out there who will say that it is their right to smoke this to suck that to inhale this and to drink something else. But it is our responsibility to say to people that it is bad for their health and to be very careful—very very careful.This bill is a vast improvement on the animal welfare front on the original flawed bill. We have not actually taken the opportunity to slam shut the door on animal testing because animal testing done offshore that is detrimental to the safety of one of these substances can be used to turn that substance down. I ask the Minister and I ask the Government whether they would say “Let’s do that and go back from today—but not for the future—so as of midnight tonight these drugs that have been tested on hapless beagle puppies and proved to be unsafe is a reason for us turning them down.” But we should have said in this bill that no evidence from any animal testing from any part of the world will ever form part of a decision to give the tick for one of these dangerous substances. That is what I wanted and maybe in 10 years’ time when I am back again we can revisit this legislation and do it again.What I want to do is finish as I began. I am going to accept my part of the responsibility for the Mad Hatters’ tea party that we have inflicted across the country on so many of the participants. It has been a bad experiment and this Parliament got it badly wrong. But today we are fixing the wrong because we can all make errors of judgment and mistakes. New Zealand says to the rest of the world today that first and foremost we do not believe that there should be any animal testing on any product under any circumstances unless it is for pharmaceutical lifesaving reasons because we believe in respect for all animals. We believe in the sanctity and the dignity of all the animals—however big or small—that we share this world with.That is the message from this Parliament—we are not going to sacrifice animals at the altar of mind-altering drugs. We are saying no to drugs today and we are telling young people that taking drugs is a very very risky business and that this Parliament’s responsibility is to try to help educate them on that front.