Marcroft JennyJENNY MARCROFT (NZ First): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. It's a pleasure to rise and speak on the second reading of the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill. I'd like to begin my contribution this afternoon just by really thanking the Health Committee for the diligent way they have worked through this process. Whatever way you look at it medicinal cannabis is an emotive topic. People are either emphatically for it or vehemently against it so finding the pathway through this together is something to be commended. I would like to note the intention signalled by the previous speaker Dr Shane Reti that there is consideration to continue their support so I would like to thank the member for announcing that this afternoon.I am a brand new member of the Health Committee. I've had two meetings there so far and I am really pleased to join that committee. I am disappointed though that this particular bill has gone through its committee stage; it would have been great to have been part of that process. I look forward to continuing work with a great team of members from both sides of the House—well chaired great deputy chair and I look forward to getting to know those members in greater depth.I'd like to thank all the many many submitters on this bill of which there were more than a thousand—1786 written submissions on this bill and 158 oral submissions were heard. So that was a considerable amount of emotion of detail of consideration for the committee through that period of time and for those submitters too in having to bring their stories to be heard. To the Minister the Hon Dr David Clark I thank him for his ability to collaborate and to consider the New Zealand First contribution and it has been a great process to work with him.I don't bring a medical background to the Health Committee and to this particular bill but what I do bring is real life experience of what it's like to be with some people when they die—when they die from a horrible cancer and the slow and painful way that that happens. I referenced this in my first reading speech about my mother. I was a teenager when she was first diagnosed with breast cancer and then the slow painful demise of her over quite a number of years.I don't really want to go into the long and painful slow process of her death but I do want to make note of one particular story around this. We had a car in the 1970s; it was a lime green Datsun 120Y. It was quite a machine. However even though it was a new car which was something really flash for us she had to travel from Rotorua over the Mamakus to Waikato Hospital for her treatment. Now that in those days was a very long and winding road to get there and it was quite bumpy. So it was a very painful journey for her to make to go over for her treatment and then to come back again. That particular journey and her discomfort because of the pain she was in really brought home to me that those sorts of things are exacerbated in terms of people's pain levels and their thresholds to the pain.So this is where the consideration that New Zealand First has in terms of extending the terminology of being in a terminal condition to one of palliation—because you can be terminal but you don't necessarily know how long that will be for. When you are in palliation it could be a lot longer a period of time than 12 months. So that was really—along with many of the submissions that were heard through the select committee process of extending that period from terminal.I would just like to mention a couple of the submissions that have come through to the committee relating to that. We heard from a submitter Natalie Clark that in the end this bill should be about compassion: Please make an ethical conscious and compassionate choice when thinking about this Bill. Think of how the decisions made are going to impact the lives of thousands of New Zealanders not to mention their friends families and loved ones." Another submitter Jack Meng said "Pass the bill in question. Consider further amendments in relation to medical cannabis on the basis of compassion". And it's that: it is on the basis of compassion that I make my contribution today.Terminal illness—the requirement for a medical professional to diagnose this condition was also raised and that's why we've extended out into palliation. Terminal illness is hard to define and a person may in fact live longer than a year after the diagnosis of a terminal illness. I'd just like to reference the Minister in his contribution today that this change—extending it out from the terminal into palliative care—would remove the 12-month restriction and the term "terminally ill" from the provisions. It's not possible to predict with complete accuracy the progression of life-threatening conditions. In addition terminally ill is no longer commonly used in palliative care and can be confronting for some patients.The World Health Organization has a definition of what palliative care is. "[It's] an approach that improves the quality of life"—and I'm quoting now—"of patients and their families facing the problem associated with life-threatening illness through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems … [It] provides relief from pain and other distressing symptoms [it] affirms life and regards dying as a normal process; [it] intends neither to hasten or postpone death; … [it] offers a support system to help patients live as actively as possible until death; [and it] offers a support system to help the family cope during the patients illness and [also] in their own bereavement;".On that note I would like to conclude my contribution this afternoon and thank all the members who are making contributions on what is an important bill this afternoon. Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker."