Turner Judy: Misuse of Drugs (Classification of BZP) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Turner Judy: Misuse of Drugs (Classification of BZP) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 11 September 2007. Volume:642;Page:11726. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) 
: 
 I stand on behalf of United Future to speak to the first reading of the Misuse of Drugs (Classification of BZP) Amendment Bill. We will support this bill going to the Health Committee but we are hugely disappointed in the process that has led us to this point today. We take an approach in New Zealand to social stimulants that is absolutely loopy: rather than presuming risk and requiring those who wish to market new designer substances to prove their safety before allowing them loose on the market we let the horse bolt. We have allowed millions of these party pills to be aggressively marketed for years with our supposed experts constantly reassuring us that the risks were minimal. Now literally years later we see an about-face from our official experts and a proposed legislative tightening around benzylpiperazine (BZP) and its legal status. So we have allowed a demand to grow we have allowed a social reliance and a social expectation to be fostered and we have allowed new social norms to be based on those products despite the fact that anyone with half a brain could figure out that this substance would be ingested as part of a cocktail of alcohol and other social stimulants and mood enhancers. 
The late introduction of this bill is a disgrace to all of those who are responsible for law and regulations on these sorts of matters. I disagree with what the member from Labour was saying: that this bill could not have happened any quicker. We should have had laws written in such a way that we started from a cautious position then liberalised it as the facts were made known to the appropriate authorities. The fact is that those who have designed and made a veritable mint from these products were never required to submit their products for prior approval and that is absolutely outrageous. They postured about having a voluntary code of self-regulation but that made no impact on the quantity or quality of what was being sold and on their website they invited young people to participate in human experimentation on product development removing the advertisement only after public outrage was expressed. We have had doctors parents young people themselves politicians and veterinarians all asking for parliamentary action for literally years. 
 So what about future developments? Will new social stimulants new mood enhancers be allowed to flood the market while we take years to figure out that maybe they should be somewhere on a schedule? One of the previous speakers referred to alcohol and tobacco and suggested that we are being very inconsistent in scheduling BZP. I actually agree with that and I believe that if we had known back then what we know now about both alcohol and tobacco then we would have an extremely different approach to regulating them. [ 
Interruption 
] As the member says that was way back. Instead we have a situation where the horse has bolted and knowing that politics is the art of the achievable I do not believe that we can ever fully rein in the use of those things in the very near future. But when new products appear let us at least have provisions in place that take a cautious response to them initially. 
The Green member said that putting a substance on a schedule does not reduce its toxicity; I totally agree with that. We do not reduce the toxicity of any substance—arsenic and the like—just by listing it on a schedule. But by listing it we can send a strong signal in law that we recognise there is a degree of risk associated with it that we consider unacceptable for New Zealand citizens to take. One of the big risks that the Green Party likes to put out there regarding the control of substances like this is that people may be arrested. In fact that is the biggest risk that those members see. But we do not use that same principle with regard to any other law. We do not say that the risk of violent offending is that people may be arrested. Well it is the same in this case I say to Mr Tanczos. Yes there is a risk that people will get chafed wrists as a result of supplying young people with a substance that this society deems to be unsuitable for their consumption. 
United Future is very happy to see the bill go to the select committee and to consider what submitters will have to say about it. I think there are some things to be discussed around the issue of enforcement about the kinds of penalties that we want to see and about the types of legal interventions we want to see taken particularly with regard to young people where it is a first offence. I do not think there is a need for us to be heavy-handed but rather we should take more of a diversionary approach where we start to put people through education courses. United Future would support investigating those types of things. But finally after all the calls that have been made on this matter we are certainly very glad to see this bill before the House and going to a select committee. We will be supporting that.