King Annette: Motions — Misuse of Drugs (Classification of Ephedrine and Pseudoephedrine) Order 2003—Approval 
King Annette: Motions — Misuse of Drugs (Classification of Ephedrine and Pseudoephedrine) Order 2003—Approval 
[Volume:615;Page:11485] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
 on behalf of the 
 Associate Minister of Health 
: I move  
That pursuant to section 4A of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 this House approve the Misuse of Drugs (Classification of Ephedrine and Pseudoephedrine) Order 2003 made under section 4 of that Act. 
 This order demonstrates this coalition’s commitment to a National Drug Policy that targets drug use in three ways: through supply control demand reduction and problem limitation. 
The illicit manufacture of methamphetamine from the precursor substances of pseudoephedrine and ephedrine is a significant issue in many parts of New Zealand. This order will further develop the Government’s strong response to the illicit manufacture of methamphetamine from these precursors. Firstly it will provide a significant deterrent to those who are trying to import pseudoephedrine and ephedrine for the manufacture of methamphetamine. Secondly it will give enforcement agencies better legislative tools with which to combat the illicit use of these substances. It will also place a higher priority on them for enforcement agencies. Thirdly it will maintain access to those useful effective and safe therapeutic substances for legitimate users. 
This order will make the substances pseudoephedrine and ephedrine class C5 controlled drugs except in circumstances where pseudoephedrine products are currently pharmacy-only medicines. Those products will become class C3 controlled drugs and currently officials are consulting the industry over regulations to clarify their classification. That classification will make it illegal to import those products without a licence and will significantly increase the penalties for illegally importing those precursors for illicit use in methamphetamine manufacture. 
I thank the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs for its examination of the evidence on those drugs and its recommendations to the Minister on their appropriate classification. I also thank the Health Committee for its prompt consideration of this order which is not the only action the Government has taken in its effort to control dangerous drugs. 
The Government is also undertaking a number of initiatives to stop the diversion of pseudoephedrine and ephedrine into illicit methamphetamine manufacture. For example police the National Drug Intelligence Bureau and pharmacists have cooperated in minimising the success of those who shop for over-the-counter pseudoephedrine products on behalf of methamphetamine manufacturers. That measure has met with much success and the self-medicating industry association has brought to our attention a 21 percent decrease in pharmacy sales of pseudoephedrine products in the last 18 months. We are now back to the December 1994 level of pseudoephedrine sales. 
Secondly Cabinet has also agreed to changes to the Misuse of Drugs Act which will increase police and customs power in relation to precursor substances which include pseudoephedrine and ephedrine. An importation offence for precursors will also be added to the Act. Under those changes the police and customs will have warrant-less search and seizure powers in relation to pseudoephedrine and ephedrine. 
I strongly endorse the Misuse of Drugs (Classification of Ephedrine and Pseudoephedrine) Order 2003. I hope to see this order come into force soon to complement all the other efforts currently being put in place. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 It is with pleasure that I speak on the Misuse of Drugs (Classification of Ephedrine and Pseudoephedrine) Order 2003. The ability for those two drugs to be expeditiously scheduled is the result of work done by the National Party because the Rt Hon Wyatt Creech as Minister of Health in the previous National Government set up a system that allowed for the expeditious scheduling of drugs. At that time the system was set up to deal with the drugs Fantasy and Ecstasy. We know that criminals who are of a mind to try to make a huge amount of money out of the suffering of our children and younger adults by getting them addicted to drugs will go to any length to change the chemical formula of certain drugs and thereby escape the rules put in place to classify a drug as a class A B or C drug. 
We all know what a slow process it can be to get legislation passed through Parliament and by the time it is passed the criminals in these circumstances will probably have changed the nature of the drug so that it is slightly different and therefore the law no longer applies. But in this case the expeditious scheduling of drugs has allowed for a very rapid change of classification thus allowing the New Zealand Police and the Customs Service to act. We are scheduling ephedrine and pseudoephedrine as class C drugs. 
That is rather unusual because neither of those two drugs has addictive properties in themselves. They are used for cough and cold remedies. We all know that the common cold lasts about 10 days and nothing we do will shorten that time apart from going to bed taking an aspirin and a couple of days off work—which none of us do. We know that a cold just has to outlive its time. However we like to take medications that dry up secretions from our nose and make us feel a little bit better during that time. Pseudoephedrine is one of those substances. It dries up a runny nose. However those drugs are able to be turned into a very dangerous substance called P. Out there in the market that drug is leading to a massive increase in violence. 
The other night I was talking to someone who works at Victim Support and he told me that when visiting police cells he has seen men who have never had a criminal conviction in their life never been involved in violence but who have gone to parties taken P and ended up being violent towards taxi-drivers and the people around them and gone home to the family and been violent. These men are losing their families and businesses as a result of using P. We see young people who are very involved in violence. We see girls who end up on the streets prostituting themselves because of their addiction to that very addictive substance. 
At the moment in the way the law works people who bring in large quantities of ephedrine or pseudoephedrine from overseas face a maximum fine of $500 if convicted. That is not a deterrent to those criminal gangs—not at all. We have been told that huge suitcases of those precursor drugs have been brought in through customs. This move to expeditiously schedule ephedrine and pseudoephedrine is a means to help the Customs Service and the New Zealand Police to take action on the external market to stop those drugs from being brought into this country and being turned into P. 
At the Health Committee we had some concerns about the process that was being used. It was brought in just before Christmas and the independent expert advisory committee on drugs was supposed to follow processes to have a good look at the issues before it made recommendations forchanges in respect of scheduling. Before this came in just before Christmas we felt there had not been sufficient time to consider what that might mean. But knowing that those drugs were being turned into P and the rampant terrible effect that was having on New Zealand the will of the committee was such that we were prepared to agree to the expeditious scheduling of those drugs. 
The problem now is that people may turn back to the internal market for supply. The other day I visited a pharmacist in Auckland who had suffered from ram raids. Even though the pharmacist has put grills across the windows the premises are still being broken into. People are trying to get hold of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine. Pharmacists have taken major steps to put those medications behind the counter and they make people sign for medications that contain cold remedies and ephedrine or pseudoephedrine so they can limit somebody’s ability to go around different pharmacies and buy large quantities. The only other option is to make those drugs available only on prescription. People who have a cold do not want to have to go to the doctor to get a prescription. They want to be able to treat themselves. However the question that has to be asked is whether the limiting of the external supply will lead the manufacturers of those drugs to turn back to the internal supply. 
There is an argument that we do need to have cold remedies and ephedrine and pseudoephedrine available in the marketplace and on the shelves but there is also an argument that perhaps we do not need them and that those who want those drugs for anything extraordinary or special should get them on prescription. 
I remember when I was at medical school that two drugs were selected out of the hat that we had to study. One of them was pseudoephedrine and I could not see any reason for having it on the market. That was quite a long time ago. Little did we know at that time that that drug would be used particularly in New Zealand to manufacture P. New Zealand does have a much bigger market for that drug than many other countries in the world. It may be that we have less market for some of the other drugs that people use—drugs of abuse—but we do have a major problem with that drug at this time. 
 In the 1970s people got to know that LSD was a terrible drug—that people could have flashbacks that they could be sent into psychosis and that it could be very addictive for some people. People stopped using it. It was not a party drug of choice any more. We sincerely hope that the young people of this country will realise that P is an extremely harmful drug and that the House has moved expeditiously to schedule ephedrine and pseudoephedrine so that we can try to close the market on P. National supports this motion.