Kanongata'a-Suisuiki AnahilaANAHILA KANONGATA'A-SUISUIKI (Labour): It's an absolute honour to stand here to speak on the second reading of the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill. I want to take this opportunity to thank all the submitters—all 1786—who shared their views and opinions with the select committee. It has been a privilege to be part of the select committee who were honoured to listen to the stories shared by the submitters. I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the leadership of those involved in the pathway of this bill into this House: the chair of the Health Committee Louisa Wall; the deputy chair Dr Shane Reti; and the Minister of Health for his leadership in bringing this into the House. As a first-time member of Parliament this will always be the bill that will have a lasting effect on how I experience lawmaking in this House. As we have heard from the Hon Dr David Clark all parties have been involved in discussions to get this bill into this House.As we heard from the Hon David Clark the problem we are trying to solve—I just want to get to that point because I don't think the last speaker Simon O'Connor had read the bill or read a lot of the information that's been provided about this bill. What I want to remind the House is that in the bill the problem that the Hon David Clark is trying to solve here is to improve access to quality and affordable medicinal cannabis products. The bill will provide interim relief for all who are suffering in pain and lay the foundations for a scheme that will result in a greater supply of quality affordable medicinal products. That is what this bill is trying to achieve. Like many New Zealanders I wasn't aware of the extent—I wasn't aware that doctors could prescribe medicinal cannabis. In the advice of the ministry to the committee what they said to us on 14 May was that currently cannabis can be prescribed for any condition if there is a clinical judgment by the doctor that a patient has the potential to benefit. Ministry approval is required for unconsented cannabis products. We asked the ministry what is the scope of conditions for which medicinal cannabis is prescribed and for what volume of prescriptions. The things that came back from the ministry were that currently 26 conditions can be prescribed for cannabis and for what? It is for severe pain neurotic pain severe seizures nausea—severe" "chronic" most of those words are coming up in terms of "severe" "chronic spasm" and "chronic". It comes throughout all these conditions that the ministry prescribes. Then we asked them: what is the volume? In the last three years how many people have actually been prescribed medicinal cannabis? They told us that in 2015 only 46 had; they told us in 2016 only 60 had; in 2017 93 had. Less than 200 people have been prescribed this medicine who—according to the 1786 submitters—told us that it is a pain relief that it has relieved the pain that their families or they personally themselves had suffered. So I think in terms of what we are trying to do and in terms of what the Minister had said to us this will enable access to quality and affordable medicinal cannabis by more New Zealanders. In terms of the 1786 submitters I think more New Zealanders do deserve to have this interim process in place until we have the scheme in place as said by the Minister 12 months after this bill is passed."