Katene Rahui: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Katene Rahui: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:674;Page:20060] 
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 Tena koe. The Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill is one that the Maori Party feels extremely strongly about and it is timely that it is being debated on the same day that another harmful drug of choice is being debated—that is tobacco. The Maori Party promotes Whanau Ora as the way forward to achieving a future where whanau determine what is in their best interests. Quite simply addiction and the misuse of drugs are not part of that pathway. Controlling the supply of illegal drugs is an important and significant objective and an objective that the Maori Party fully accepts. The production of and addiction to drugs are accepted as not being in the best interests of Maori. 
Apparently the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor Professor Sir Peter Gluckman has estimated that the value of the methamphetamine market in New Zealand is about $1 billion per annum. At least 10 percent of this amount is derived from domestically diverted pseudoephedrine. But of course the greatest cost is the loss of human potential. I remember a case in April 2010 when a Taranaki P dealer handed himself into police and asked to be charged. He was desperate to get away from what he had been involved in and his desperate action indicates that like cigarette smokers people addicted to P more than likely want to quit but find it hard to do so due to physical withdrawals. This case and so many of the tragic situations that we hear of where whanau have been held to account by the impact of illegal drugs have motivated us to really consider carefully the type of bold response we need to take to P—as we have done with cigarettes—given the uniqueness of the problem and its effects on whanau. 
Bulk quantities of pseudoephedrine are now being intercepted in much larger volumes. They are hidden in furniture in cargo ship containers instead of other small-time methods. We can all recall different stories we have been told of drug hawks standing outside chemists and paying elderly women up to $100 to buy them a few boxes of Coldrex such is the grip of the addiction. 
So it is not a question of whether we should or should not do something. It is a question of what we can do what strategies we can introduce and what support we can provide within our families to keep our families drug-free. But in the interim we support the passage of this legislation to prohibit the importation of controlled drugs. We do however question the validity of passing an amendment to the Misuse of Drugs Act while the Law Commission is carrying out a wide-ranging review of that Act. It seems to us that the most sensible course of action would be to hold a comprehensive review which takes all issues into account and scopes out a long pathway ahead and then we look at the law. 
At the end of the day doing something about drug abuse is in line with the Maori Party’s respect for mana whakapapa. Too many young Maori lives have been destroyed by P. This bill supports the strengthening of whakapapa lines. We support whanau-focused drug education whanau-focused drug addiction recovery and restoration services and we support any initiatives that will act to reduce the availability of methamphetamine or drug-related harm. To this end the Maori Party stands in support of this bill.