Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker for an opportunity to take a call on the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill. National as we have said is supporting this bill through to second reading not because we support this bill not because we think this is a piece of good legislation or because it is something which actually will make a positive difference to New Zealanders but because we want the opportunity at the committee of the whole House stage to be able to fix this bill and actually make it into a bill which will help New Zealanders and which will actually provide proper medical cannabis products and medicines to those who actually need it.National and I understand the need in our community for medicinal cannabis products to be made available to help to relieve the pain of New Zealanders and to relieve the suffering of those who wish to have these products and to be able to use these for their benefit but we don't believe in providing an unregulated market a system which has no regulation—a piece of legislation which essentially will leave it completely open to the bureaucracy to then put that in place. In this piece of legislation that we have in front of Parliament today we don't know who can grow cannabis we don't know where this can be grown we don't know how these products will get approved we don't know who will prescribe these products we don't know where they're going to be dispensed and we don't know the categories or the criteria for those who'll be entitled to have them. This piece of legislation leaves all of this to the bureaucracy to be able to then put in place regulations further down the track with no parliamentary scrutiny of these.This is a shoddy piece of legislation which was rushed together in the Government's first 100 days when they wanted to go out there and say We have provided a solution." Well I've got news for New Zealanders who have been calling for reform in this area: it's over one year since this Government came into office and they still haven't got an answer. Their simple answer is: "Well we're going to pass a piece of legislation which will then put in place the ability for the bureaucracy to put in place regulations which might come into place at the end of 2019 which might then come into force in a couple years after that." That is not delivering on 100-day promises. That is not even delivering within a year. That is potentially delivering something in a number of years.The second point that I'd like to make is that this bill is the back door to allowing for cannabis and loose-leaf cannabis to be legalised. This is the back door to decriminalisation. I know that in some parts of this House that's what they want but let's have an open and transparent conversation about that. Let's have a debate about the decriminalisation of cannabis. And yes there will be a debate coming up with a referendum but that is the place to be having a debate over the decriminalisation of cannabis not by opening up the law so that it allows for anybody and everybody to be able to essentially say that they've got some sort of condition whereby they can then access medicinal cannabis grow it and then be able to consume it.I want to remind the House that cannabis is a dangerous drug; that it is something which we must tread very carefully with. It is a class C regulated drug. It is dangerous and it does cause an enormous amount of harm in our community. Just this week on Sunday I released some statistics that I received from the Ministry of Health which showed the number of cannabis hospitalisations in New Zealand coded by mental and behavioural disorders and by poisoning for cannabis. What is true is that over the last year we had 432 hospitalisations where cannabis was the primary diagnosis in our hospitals four of which were children aged under 14. We have also had 79 hospitalisations where poisoning by cannabis was the primary diagnosis—Chlöe Swarbrick: I raise a point of order Mr Assistant Speaker. I'm just seeking your guidance on this as a new member. My understanding is that—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): No no. That's not the point—can you sit down? The purpose of points of order is not for you to make clarifications about what's going on. That's out of order.SIMEON BROWN: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. Last year 79 were hospitalised with a primary diagnosis of poisoning by cannabis nine of which were children.So over the last five years 73 children have been hospitalised by marijuana. This is a dangerous drug. We must tread carefully when we're talking about decriminalising a class C drug in New Zealand. It does have an enormous amount of harm in this community. So Mr Speaker we support this bill to second reading but we have very very strong objections to what is in it. We have Supplementary Order Papers that we would like to be supported and if they're not we will oppose in future.I seek leave to table a response to my Official Information Act request which includes hospitalisations both by psychoactive substances and by cannabis as I referred to in my speech.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There appears to be not. It may be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Before I call the next speaker—can members be very careful with their interjections. I know that it's a bill that everyone has strong opinions about but that doesn't give licence for members to make interjections which are unnecessary. Also the content of the speeches—this is a very wide debate so members can bring up anything that was brought up by submitters and I have read a few of them and a lot of things were brought up. So just calm down."