Wall Louisa: Psychoactive Substances Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWall Louisa: Psychoactive Substances Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 09 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:11810. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa):Kia ora Mr Chair. It is my pleasure to talk to Part 2 of the Psychoactive Substances Bill which is really about licensing to import to manufacture to sell and in addition to research psychoactive substances. I want to highlight that addition the research addition because that was absolutely something that submitters made clear—and I thank them for highlighting it to us—was a requirement to enable them to continue to research the impacts of psychoactive substances particularly the addiction and mental health researchers at Auckland University. So I thank them for that addition.I would like to highlight clause 15 which is really about the grounds for granting a licence. Throughout this process we wanted to make sure that fit and proper persons are able to get these licences. So if you have had a dishonesty offence or if you have had any offence against the misuse of drugs legislation then it automatically disqualifies you from being able to hold a licence. I absolutely agree with that.Clause 16 is really about ensuring that when you do have a licence to import there is going to be a requirement for you to name the product that you are bringing into the country and the quantity of that substance being imported. I think those requirements are incredibly helpful and beneficial to an ongoing monitoring of these products. I think we all would agree that we are entering into a new space where we are trying to regulate a substance that in any other circumstance possibly would be classified as a drug and therefore you would be unable to use it. So having these requirements about knowing what is coming in in what quantities and hopefully then also knowing what region of the country and what communities these substances are going to be consumed within is I think also part of an ongoing requirement of us to ensure that we negate any negative consequences of this piece of legislation.One of the things I wanted to highlight too through this process is that clause 24 will make it an offence to import psychoactive substances without a licence. It is incredibly important that we have measures in place that are going to absolutely deal to people who try to manipulate our systems and bring in substances that they know they can sell for quite a bit of profit. So a $500000 fine as the penalty for that offence is I think absolutely congruent with the message that we want out there.This regime that we are entering into really is one where we are creating the law as we progress through the implementation of the bill. I think nobody is naive to the fact that many communities being affected by these psychoactive substances have had to contend with many of the current importers of those psychoactive substances trying to sell as much of them into our communities as possible. It is one thing that I know is on the agenda of the Minister of Health and obviously the Minister of Police because I think we have to be vigilant about the consequences of this bill going through. We know already that shopkeepers have been encouraged to stockpile psychoactive substances and that there have been attempts to discount the product to get it out into our communities. We know that we are going to have to be vigilant once this legislation goes through to confiscate as much of the product that is out there as possible so I think these monitoring regimes these signals to the psychoactive substances business community are really really important. Obviously we support these regimes 100 percent.The only other thing I really wanted to highlight in Part 2 is clause 41 which is about the registering of those products that go through the process and that our expert committee deem to be sufficiently low risk to be granted a licence for sale. But in addition to that we are also going to make sure that the public are aware of the products that have been through the process but are not approved. I think that was a really good requirement that the Health Committee made in the interests of the public good so that everybody has some transparency around the process and we know what products have been through the process of being verified or certified as being of sufficiently low risk to be sold within our communities but also that the non-approved products will also be listed.Again I want to highlight that the distinction between some of these products is very difficult. Obviously if the packaging of some of the non-approved substances ends up out into the community or in fact some of the manufacturers just sell it in spite of it not being approved I think that what we need to make sure of is that this process educates our communities and that we have constructive conversations with our communities as we all have attempted to do. I can say that in my community in Manurewa Manurewa Local Board member Colleen Brown and I visited our 32 dairies. We identified six dairies that were selling psychoactive substances. We informed them about the legislation that is going through the House. We said to them that it was likely that the manufacturers would try to sell those products to them at discounted rates. We warned them about stockpiling. We were also very clear that these products are hurting our community.What I would like to acknowledge again which I did during Part 1 of this Committee stage debate is the community members the dairy owners who through their own recognition of the harms have chosen not to sell these substances. Twenty-two percent of my community dairy owners sell these products but what I want to focus on are the 78 percent who do not. What I see as an ongoing process from here is that I would prefer that none of these products were sold in my community but I am a realist and I also stand up for the rights of adults to choose to partake in these types of products that are akin to both cigarettes and alcohol. That concludes my contribution. Thank you.