Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Mr Chair. I appreciate the Minister's clarification on that. I did hear I think him say in respect of the licensing regime and details like the card that there would be a comprehensive consultation process and that that's how good law is made. I would disagree actually. That's how lazy law is made because we are the lawmakers and what we are doing with this bill is we are delegating the responsibility for creating a groundbreaking new regime entirely to people who are unelected officials. Actually one of the things that we would be doing as a party if we had confidence that we could get our two really important—I don't want to call them bottom lines but they are—bottom lines across the line and they are a sunset clause on the terminal exemption and much greater detail about the licensing regime in the bill then we would avoid the need for coming back because Parliament would have scrutinised what that framework would have done—it would have done so this morning—and we would have a much better framework in place.So I just want to reiterate where we're at now. In respect of clauses 5 5A and 6 it's really important that we put a time limit as the Government has said in its explanatory note is the purpose and secondly that we have more detail around the licensing regime. We'll come to that later on. Now Dr Liz Craig talked last night about the reason why the end date for this clause is not necessary by referring members to clause 8—the fact that there is going to be a review. It's not a review of this clause. It doesn't even specifically mention the terminal exemption; it just says there's going to be a review of the Act two years later and that it should be concluded within 12 months. That is an entirely insufficient response to concerns by my party and the public that this is a stalking horse for the decriminalisation of cannabis. There has to be an end date because that's indeed what the purpose of this clause is.Now I want to ask the Minister about a reconciliation between this and the licensing regime. I may have missed it last night so it will be necessary for the Minister to clarify this point for me. It's very important. That is on the question of whether the licensing regime and the lack of detail means that we can't rule this in or out yet by the 59 words in the initial bill—whether indeed any of the approved medicinal products that will be produced under the licensing regime could be loose leaf and smoked. Yeah and the Minister is nodding and I did miss it last night so I do beg his indulgence because it goes to the heart of the question that I have which is respectfully how will one tell the difference between whether a product being ingested is an illicit substance under the Misuse of Drugs Act or a legal substance under the licensing regime that this bill would create? Indeed it's going to be really hard to tell the difference and what that could potentially do is create a criminal matter—a Crimes Act matter or a Misuse of Drugs Act matter—to a prescribing technicality.Actually again if loose leaf is part of the licensing regime we are definitely—definitely—in this House this morning considering the decriminalising of illicit cannabis because it seems to me that it will be impossible for a police officer to act on the smoking of cannabis when the defence is no longer then Well I have an exemption because I'm terminally ill". It's going to be "Well I got a prescription from my doctor". They'll say "Well OK show us the prescription." and he'll say "Well I haven't got it because I used it." They'll say "Well we'll go to your pharmacist." and he'll say "Well actually I didn't quite tell the whole truth. I borrowed a prescription from my mate"—or the output of that prescription—"because I too was feeling like I needed some medicine."Now I've borrowed Voltaren; I've lent Voltaren. It was a prescription medicine and it's probably not the best thing to do but it's not a hanging offence. We could be normalising loose-leaf cannabis to become a medicine in the same way that an illicit drug could be ingested. So I think this distinction needs to be very clearly made because if loose leaf is going to be part of the licensing regime this clause could not only become functionally obsolete but it could actually decriminalise cannabis use more generally."