Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in support of this bill and I commend the Minister. Good on David Clark for bringing it to the House.I pose the simple question: why shouldn't a dying person be able to smoke a little dope? What is the gain for the rest of New Zealand in trying to stop them? Because that's been the policy of New Zealand for quite a long time—60 70 80 years now.I think you can assess any policy by asking three simple questions: what is the intention of the policy how effective has it been and what have the unintended consequences been? Well the effect of prohibiting dying people from smoking cannabis has been ineffective. The intent is to prevent people from smoking cannabis. Well the effectiveness of it has been almost useless. We know that many many people in New Zealand smoke cannabis in spite of the law and we know that many dying people with terminal illnesses also smoke cannabis so it's been ineffective. But when it really falls down is when you start to examine the unintended effects of a prohibition on dying people smoking cannabis.What it's meant as we've heard from earlier speakers is that they have to deal with the black market—that they create demand for black market production that they fund criminal elements in the process of acquiring the cannabis that they smoke and that they create a product that is more concentrated than it would otherwise be. There's an incentive for illegal smugglers to create more concentrated products that are easier to smuggle for the value they provide—that's why the prohibition in the US gave us moonshine incidentally—and they provide products that are more dangerous because the people supplying them well they don't exactly comply with the Consumer Guarantees Act and they don't usually give refunds.So we have a policy on the statute book of New Zealand that prohibits dying people from smoking cannabis and in the process is completely ineffectual in achieving its stated aim and at the same time forces people to go on to the black market which they fund—enlarging the criminal sphere—to acquire products that are more highly concentrated and more impure and dangerous than they would otherwise need to be.I think it's fair to say that the prohibition on dying people smoking a little dope is nuts. And it's the right thing to do for this House to be removing that prohibition and at the same time introducing a framework that allows people to access that drug of choice in that circumstance in a safe and legal way. This makes us a better society in so many ways—not just the compassion for those people who are suffering but the erosion of the criminal sphere that is forced by definition to supply this product.But the thing about politics is that once you accept the principle suddenly you find yourself having to ask other questions. And an obvious question in the context of this bill is: why do you have to be dying—not just suffering but dying—in order to access cannabis which has been accepted if you support the bill to be something therapeutic for people in certain conditions.Why is it that it seems under this bill New Zealanders get up to one year of smoking cannabis if they develop a terminal illness? What about all of those people who all the same principles I've discussed tonight already apply to? What about those people with chronic illnesses who tell us—and it's up them to decide; not up to Medsafe or the Food and Drug Administration or anyone else to decide—that smoking cannabis alleviates their symptoms? Why don't we consider at the select committee stage expanding the scope of this bill to include people with long-term chronic illnesses that may not be terminal in 12 months?Maybe people should vote for another bill on members' day tomorrow night. But for now the ACT Party proudly stands in support of this bill and I commend it to the House. Thank you Mr Speaker.