Reti ShaneDr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): Thank you Madam Chair. It's a pleasure to take a call in the committee of the whole House of this bill the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill and to speak to clause 1 the title. Just acknowledging those for the body of work that we are going to be talking on here tonight there are a number of people who have helped us to get this stage: the industry players; I'd like to acknowledge the Parliamentary Counsel Office Sarah Gwynn Shane Le Brun from Medical Cannabis Awareness New Zealand and international and local collaborators.The title talks to Misuse of Drugs"—open bracket "Medicinal Cannabis" close bracket—"Amendment Bill. The open bracket and close bracket "Medicinal Cannabis" could of course be "(Medicinal Cannabis Products)" or "(Medicinal Cannabis Scheme)". It has quite some breadth to it and I'll come to some of the breadth that the Minister took when he described the previous bill and this current bill. But as a medicinal cannabis product the position that we will be taking and as a scheme is that we'll outline our position and why and we'll outline the principles that have guided us to that position and the pathway to solutions towards medicinal cannabis products that in our hands will be high quality; will be safe accessible and affordable; and will ease the suffering of New Zealanders. In the previous bill as the Minister outlined in his introduction there were three main objectives. The first was to deschedule cannabidiol (CBD); the second was the terminal exception which we've heard some discussion on already; and the third was quality standards for a medicinal cannabis scheme. In this bill it maintains—and certainly the title describes it accurately I think—descheduling CBD. It modifies the terminal exception. It starts describing the medicinal cannabis scheme—it uses words like "cultivation" and "manufacturing"—and it adds support for a domestic strain. We'll talk to all of these. Some of these we think they have actually done a better job so the title does actually describe it quite well. Some of the modifications we think have actually made it worse and some we just cannot get to and we'll describe exactly why that is as we progress.I think the main issues that we want to put on the table here—that would well come under the title and that we would not change the title to encompass—would be that we will have some challenges around loose leaf which has already been described by various members tonight and we will have some challenges around what the media have called legislative laziness—that is the medicinal cannabis scheme which clearly again sits under the title of "medicinal cannabis" and that we see and that the public have seen as a huge emptiness a bare blackboard and that's what we want to talk to in this bill in this debate. What we want to do is we want to bring forward any knowledge we may have that might be useful. We have been willing to share. We are still willing to share. None of us have a franchise on all the good ideas in the world; neither do we. But what we do have we'd like to share. I'd like to pick up on what the Minister said when he was raising the question around Supplementary Order Paper 179 which talks to a sunset clause. We'll come to that and other clauses in greater detail but just to say there is a formula that brought us to that point. It was agnostic to which party holds the Treasury benches; it was just trying to do the right thing. So as we get to that clause we'll see if the Minister still stands by his position when he can see how we came to it. The medicinal cannabis title—we think this is a completely adequate title. We see no need to change it. In our hands it could be a number of other things and we've thought about this but the gravity of what we're talking about—fundamentally starting some process towards cannabis reform in a shape—is really not requiring any smart sort of changes to the title other than what it is. It describes it accurately. We will talk to parts of it as medicinal cannabis products. We'll talk to parts of it as medicinal cannabis licensing. We'll talk to parts of it as medicinal cannabis scheme—all of which sit under the title. So we're very much looking forward to further discussion. Again we'll just put on the table that we have come here tonight to collaborate and are happy to share with those across the Chamber. Thank you."