Dunne Peter: General Debates 
Dunne Peter: General Debates 
[Volume:610;Page:7915] 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. I want to talk to the House today in the wake of the report of the Health Committee last week regarding the legal status of cannabis. Firstly I want to say how pleased I am at the assurances that have been given as recently as this afternoon’s question time by the Minister of Justice that there will be no change in the legal status of cannabis arising from that report. That is consistent with the agreement between United Future and the Government but further I venture to suggest it is consistent with the view of a large number of New Zealanders who are concerned at the current state of drug use in New Zealand at the fact that a P epidemic is under way and at the fact that drugs like marijuana are seen in many cases as a gateway to that type of more serious issue. 
I want to make the point too that since the committee has reported or completed its investigation a number of other studies have come to light that reveal the very severe risks that prolonged and excessive cannabis use poses to young people in particular. I draw the attention of the House to a 3-year study conducted in the Netherlands between 1997 and 1999 of over 4000 persons that has shown that 50 percent of psychoses diagnosis is attributable to cannabis use. That study is consistent with a Swedish study that reported earlier this year that cannabis use before the age of 18 raises the incidence rate of schizophrenia by some 600 percent. A study at Maastricht University shows that people who smoke cannabis are three times more likely to develop a psychotic disorder such as hallucinations paranoia manic depression and/or schizophrenia. There is also a recent United States 15-year follow-up study showing that cannabis use has increased the risk of major depression amongst users by over 400 percent and that mirrors a finding in Australian studies as well. 
All of this information which is constantly coming to light makes it absolutely critical that there be no moves by this Parliament to change either the legal status of cannabis or the regard in which it is held by the wider community. I draw attention to the comments made by the Professor of Pharmacology at Otago University on the medicinal cannabis issue because there have been some who have argued that this is the path we ought to consider. He made a point on  
Checkpoint 
 last Friday night that of some 400 elements in the cannabis plant approximately 40 were beneficial to health and that for there to be an effective medicinal-use strategy those 40 elements would have to be extracted turned into tablet form and then ingested under the most severe strict prescriptive arrangement. 
 The point he made that those who claimed that the mere inhaling of a cannabis joint as a pain relief or other health benefit is simply wrong. The only risk they impose upon themselves is a greater risk of lung cancer. I make the point—and we have acknowledged this—that any move to medicinal cannabis needs to be on the basis of that professor’s advice—isolating the particular elements and turning them into a medication that can be supplied under prescription subject to the relevant clinical trials having been undertaken and proved successful. 
I want to draw the attention of the House to what is perhaps the best piece of information of the lot. Okayama University in Japan is now reporting evidence that cannabis is capable of causing genetic abnormalities. There is a delicious irony in that statement because right here in this House we have the Green Party fighting furiously against any genetic modification or adjustment to plant and animal tissue yet at the same time advocating the decriminalisation of a drug that Okayama University is now saying is capable of causing genetic modification in human beings. In other words Green Party members are quite happy to protect plants and animals but are far less happy to protect human beings. 
I am appalled by the attitude of Mr Tanczos and his colleagues since the release of the report which does not give them the carte blanche they were seeking for purely selfish recreational reasons. Let us be absolutely honest about that. This is public policy to satisfy private prejudice. Here we have consistent thorough international evidence coming forward all the time demonstrating the folly of that cause yet those people over there still continue on that path and still try to dress up their support for cannabis decriminalisation as being in the public interest when we all know it is in their private interest.