O'Connor Damien: Psychoactive Substances Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Connor Damien: Psychoactive Substances Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 09 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:11812. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman):I rise to take a call on Part 2 of the Psychoactive Substances Bill. I refer to clause 35 “Grounds for approving product” which states: “The Authority may approve a psychoactive product as an approved product only if the Authority is satisfied that …”—and there are a number of conditions. I could not help but think of that in relation to the Food Bill. I hold before me the Food Bill which is quite a substantive document and I ask why we have got ourselves into this dilemma.When it comes to food—the good stuff that we need everyday to live and to survive—we have got or the Government is about to pass a bill that is this thick on the conditions pertaining to the production the sale and the safety of food. For the most part food is ingested. I do not think there is any way of injecting it or any other way; most of it is eaten. So I have gone to the meaning of “safety” and “suitability” right at the start of the bill here and I want to draw the comparisons because in some ways this Psychoactive Substances Bill is ludicrous. What we have got is a substance that people are going to ingest or take. I do not know—they might smoke it but most of them probably pop pills in the same way that we eat food.In the Food Bill it has the “Meaning of safety and suitability”. So if it is not safe and it is not suitable in the Food Bill you cannot sell it. Clause 11(1) states: “In this Act unless the context otherwise requires safety and suitability in relation to food have the meanings set out in subsections (2) and (3) …”. Clause 11(2) states that safety (a) “means a condition in which food in terms of its intended use is unlikely to cause or lead to illness or injury to human life or public health; and (b) includes a condition in which hazards are identified controlled managed eliminated or minimised.” The point being is that if you sell a banana that has decomposed or has got a bit old that is illegal but if you sell a substance that is likely to deliver psychoactive results to someone it is going to be legal. The contradictions astound me.The point is that it is probably a bit late in the process to be pointing out that contradiction there—I appreciate that. We are supporting the bill but I think we have to get serious here about what we are doing. There are those people who are not supporting the bill for whatever reason—some of them because of possible human testing. It is simply ludicrous in my view because if we know that we need this kind of legislation in the Food Bill to protect people from unsafe food then how is it that we need a small piece of legislation to protect them from what are dangerous products? There is no debate about that. So perhaps as a Parliament we should be a bit more consistent or perhaps the Government should be a bit more consistent. The only excuse it has got is that it has taken the Food Bill a hell of a lot longer to make progress in this House than the Psychoactive Substances Bill has taken so I guess the Government is moving on it somewhat slowly.Can I just say that it is really important that we do get this right. Part 2 of the Psychoactive Substances Bill specifies a whole lot of technical issues relating to products and I hope that the Minister in the chair the Associate Minister of Health can maybe take a call and give us some assurance on this. Clause 35(b) states: “the degree of harm that the product poses to individuals using the product is no more than a low risk of harm.” I do not think there is anywhere in the Food Bill that we have accepted a low risk of harm. Maybe the Minister can come back and clarify that. If there is harm identified we are simply not allowed to sell food. But if there is harm identified in a psychoactive substance then it is OK. And although I guess it does in some way relate to alcohol or perhaps caffeine—who knows what might be down the track—the bottom line is that we are currently selling products that are dangerous and there is no way in the world that they would get anywhere near the shelves under the Food Bill but we are having to bring in a separate piece of legislation to deal with them here. So I welcome the legislation but think we should refer back to the Food Bill when we need to. [Bell rung]Thank you very much. I will not take the full call but thank you very much Mr Chairman. I think that we as a nation of course understand that our reputation for food production is one of the critical things for our future. But so too should be the management of the social ills and some of the problems within our society. So although we are making good progress on this the questions of course always come back to: why so long? Why so reluctant? It is perhaps an admission by the Government finally that the market was not going to address this. In fact attempts to make one product illegal just resulted in the development of a whole lot of other products that as I say under the Food Bill of course would not be allowed to be sold.I think there was I guess glib reference to the food police. These would be people who go around stopping people having barbecues and the such like. So if you do not have your gloves on and go through the proper process you are not allowed to go—Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Like a Phil Goff barbecue. You want to stop that.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: Yes it was a good barbecue way back then. Can I say that there was this bizarre situation where there was potential for food police yet we have been allowing this to continue.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Part 2. Please go to Part 2Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: I know. I will get back to Part 2. Part 2 of the bill goes to a product of no more than a low risk of harm able to be sold here. I would say that a sausage on a barbeque is a far lesser risk yet under the Food Bill—and I acknowledge the Government is actually going to make some changes to allow the barbecue food to proceed—we would have without the changes ended up with a bizarre situation that barbecues were out because there was low risk but psychoactive substances were in. I will just say that it is good that we are making progress. Let us be consistent in this. Let us make sure that the legislation that we do finally pass here does provide the measure of protection that we need. Kia ora.