Campbell HamishDr HAMISH CAMPBELL (National—Ilam): It is my great honour to rise and talk about the Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill and I just want to commend the Health Committee of which I'm the deputy chair for their great work on this bill. I might be a little bit biased!This bill is really quite a simple bill. It's quite a small change but it actually promises to have a great enhancement for the wellbeing of the people of New Zealand. I actually think it's quite ironic since it's actually treating the symptoms of a virus which is so very small but can have such a devastating effect on people. I think we all know what it's like to have a cold or the flu. I think statistics would tell us we'd have on average two to four colds or flus a year and since it's been about 10 years since pseudoephedrine was available in New Zealand—I was just doing a bit of rough calculation as some of the previous speakers were speaking—I actually calculated that that would probably put us at about 52 weeks over those 14 years. For one year of those 14 years we have probably been suffering the effects of cold and flu so I think it's about time we actually do have effective medication to treat some of those symptoms. And I will point out that it does just treat the symptoms; it doesn't treat the underlying cause. But it is a very very effective medication.Now this bill has gone through the select committee process as I mentioned. We had submissions from 169 individuals and nine organisations. Those were a wide range of submissions—most of them were in favour—and that also included submissions from pharmacists. And we've heard some of the concerns that others have mentioned here but it is important to note that in that select committee a lot of those submissions were in favour of this medication. I will also point out as others have pointed out that this isn't like Fisherman's Friend where you can go and pick it up from the corner dairy. It is still going to be a classified pharmaceutical drug and you will need to go to the pharmacist to get it. That does help with the checks and balances.I know some people would have said that it should possibly be a prescription medication—that that would be a better approach to take—but actually technically that's what it is currently. Technically it's available under prescription but that has meant there's a very small market and so it has been withdrawn pretty much from New Zealand. A lot of the pharmaceutical companies have let their product approval lapse and so they no longer bring the product into New Zealand; so we can no longer benefit from it. And I think probably some of us that have lived longer than 14 years know the benefits of it. I think it's part of the human condition to actually know what it's like to suffer from a cold or flu. I would say that but actually every living thing that we know can be infected by viruses. So maybe it's not just us humans.But look there's a number of studies and probably a lot of expert opinion and actually personal opinion that this medication is probably one of the most effective medications to release nasal congestion and cold symptoms. And while there are alternative medications out there I would say they don't even really come close to actually giving the relief that pseudoephedrine-containing cold and flu medications do. I'd also like to point out that this is not something that's unique to New Zealand; there's a number of countries where it is available—the likes of Australia the UK Canada. They all have these medications available in a similar sort of regime and they can manage some of the negative side effects; so I think we can too.Now cold and flu people might kind of scoff at it but it is a huge cost to us as a country and also for our quality of life. I remember just a few years back—I have two young daughters—when they started going to childcare the number of colds and flus that just seemed to come one after the other. There's nothing worse than trying to look after two toddlers when you yourself are actually heavily affected by cold. So this is going to be great great news for parents who have toddlers who are going through that cold and flu season who have just started childcare and it's going to be cold after cold after cold. So this is going to be great news for them.Of course I appreciate people will say Well if you're sick you should stay at home" and that is true. But if you're a young parent if you're a sole trader often you don't have the choice just to stay at home. We do have a lot more knowledge now in the general public about viruses and the ways to protect ourselves with washing our hands wearing masks and things like that but I appreciate that certain members of our society actually can't just sit down and do nothing just because they've got a cold.Now of course the best way to actually treat a cold is actually prevention and I will just bring the House's attention to a press release by the Minister of Health that came out on 2 April. It was a week ago today. And that was reinforcing the importance of vaccination against flus. In that press release the Minister of Health highlighted the massive impact that these have on our health system over winter and that we need to take preventative measures to try and protect the most vulnerable people from getting colds. And so that of course is now available to people that are over the age of 65 pregnant those who have mental illness or addiction and for children and adults likely to get very sick with flu because of a health condition. So it is very important that we try to protect our communities from cold and flu but we're never really going to properly effectively eliminate cold and flu. So then we need suitable medications so that we can actually have a productive economy and also have that quality of life.Now I do just want to mention that there is the concern that some people might use this to turn it into other drugs methamphetamines in particular and that was probably really the big thing that we heard in the select committee against this medication. But I think as we clearly heard gangs in New Zealand have actually come up with alternative sources for methamphetamines. And I think in one of the previous readings we heard about the many hundreds of tonnes that have been intercepted coming to Australia and New Zealand over the last couple of years. That has really changed the way that drugs have been taken in New Zealand. Since the ban of pseudoephedrine we've actually seen the availability of methamphetamines increase. We've seen the price absolutely decrease making it kind of not an economically viable approach to make drugs from pseudoephedrine. So while it is a concern and there may be small groups that do use it I think we need to be mindful of that and try and minimise the harm which has already been talked about.Also we've talked about crime and the safety of pharmacists. Once again I will just point out that in the select committee there was a number of bodies representing pharmacists that were in approval of it. Pharmacists don't need to stock it if they don't think it is suitable for their stores. There was also talk about lock and key. We have heard that that is not practical for this medication and really it was the regulations that blocked this medication. It wasn't completely banned. It could have been used but the regulation stopped it being easily accessible. And I think really when we talk about this drug it's actually about making sure that New Zealanders can have access to a really effective drug during those horrible cold and flu seasons. And as I said earlier in the last 14 years we've probably had a year of our lives that have been affected by it.So while we do need to keep an eye on the negative side of things I do think this is striking a very good balance between safety and having an effective drug. It's not just going to be the free-for-all that some may suggest; there are still rules and regulations whether it be the import of it or the selling of it. It's going to be in a pharmacy. It's not going to be in your corner dairy. It's not going to be in a supermarket. And I think this kind of does make a very good balance between the two and I look forward to cold and flu medications that have pseudoephedrine being available in New Zealand because it is really known as the good stuff. So I am really happy to commend this bill to the House."