Swarbrick ChlöeIn CommitteeDebate resumed from 28 November.Clause 4 Section 70 amendedCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. This is of course the most substantive part of this proposed piece of legislation that being to increase the penalty for those who are supplying or who are presumed to be supplying as a result of the threshold that they possess synthetic substances or rather actually all psychoactive substances—a point that has been made abundantly clear throughout this debate.The Psychoactive Substances Act was created in 2013 for the sake of catching all substances that were not encompassed within the Misuse of Drugs Act classifications scheduling. It was an attempt to try and fill the gaps in terms of the large amount of substances that were being produced by backstreet chemists. As proposed in clause 4 it amends section 73(3)(a) of the Psychoactive Substances Act to replace 2 years" with "8 years". There are a number of Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) to this clause many of which seek to provide things that must be considered by judges in their sentencing of those for eight years. A number of those are actually in the name of my colleague Dr Duncan Webb who is obviously an esteemed former lecturer in the legal profession so I think that he probably takes quite a bit of pride in his work on these Supplementary Order Papers. I think that they are worthy of pride because they do offer a whole lot more clarification around the purpose I think and the general thrust of what it is that Simeon Brown and the National Party propose that they are trying to achieve with this increasing penalties for psychoactive substances.There is also an SOP in the name of my colleague Kiritapu Allan which is actually I think—even though I myself have a number of Supplementary Order Papers in my name—probably my favourite Supplementary Order Paper posed on clause 4 because it provides for the need to take into account a number of different factors in the sentencing of individuals who are prosecuted for supply or distribution or presumption of supply or distribution. These are the factors that Kiritapu Allan proposes should be taken into account and I would note as well that I think that it's incredibly brilliant that there are Te Reo Māori names for each of these things that must be taken into account—for example face-to-face reconciliation between the offender and the affected person. That is obviously part and parcel of a rehabilitative restorative justice process. Appreciation and shame in respect of wrongdoing and its impact rehabilitation then the likes of the hauora—the physical aspect the spiritual aspect the family aspect and the psychological aspect as well—and I would note that the offender's whānau background is important. There is "the principle that we should strive for values and practices of aroha (love and compassion) manaakitanga (support and kindness) wairuatanga (the importance of spirituality) and whanaungatanga (the value of connectedness to family and community):" and we are to take into account "any wider matters that indicate that social and cultural influences may have had an impact on the offending: … and any matters drawn to the court's attention under section 27 of the Sentencing Act 2009:". I think that all of these factors are of critical importance to be considered when we are looking at sentencing people for any form of criminalisation that we've come up with under the so-called war on drugs because as all of the evidence and research demonstrates particularly with regard to this Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill as it was put forward at the select committee stage there is absolutely no evidence that increasing penalties will have a dent with regard to affordability and access of these substances but it will only serve to increase our prison muster.However one thing that I do want to commend Simeon Brown on as far as this members' bill goes is the point that he has raised multiple times and which I'd like to address and ask him today and that is: does the National Party agree to not penalising drug users?"