Marcroft JennyJENNY MARCROFT (NZ First): Kia ora and thank you Mr Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to stand and speak on this member's bill in the name of Chlöe Swarbrick. I've really grappled—[Interruption]SPEAKER: Order! Thank you Dr Coleman. The member will start again please.JENNY MARCROFT: Thank you Mr Speaker and thank you for the opportunity to stand and speak on this bill this member's bill in the name of Chlöe Swarbrick. I've really grappled to understand and work on the decision—the way I will vote. I spoke in the House yesterday about my own personal experience of watching my mother with breast cancer die in a very terribly painful way. On the one hand we must be compassionate but on the other hand the wide range of inclusions and the lack of regulations in this bill are a real concern for me.There is widespread cannabis use in our community and that presents significant harm. The casual exposure to cannabis that this member's bill will enable will be especially harmful to our youth and their perceptions of what drug use is. A just and caring society needs to balance the potential harm to one section of our population against denying the needs and the real concerns of another section of our population. The Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis and Other Matters) Amendment Bill will legalise the psychoactive substance component THC with unlimited use of any form of cannabis. It will literally enable the use of any form of cannabis without limitation.Now this is important to note because science creates a distinction between a medicine and an uncontrolled substance. What are the dosage labels on a plant? Where are the published articles on experiments showing the linkages to side effects and the safety of mixing more than one prescription drug with any other drug? How for example will someone's heart medications interact or react with cannabis—with THC—and what about someone who's taking a range of medications for a variety of illnesses or for a variety of conditions. What safeguards will be in place for them if they are self-medicating?I wonder about this on a personal level too. I struggle to reconcile a decade of Drugs are bad." These are the discussions I've had with my teenager. Casual exposure to cannabis is harmful to our youth and their perceptions of the harms of drug use.Our moral compass is skewed when we treat a medicinal product as something unscientifically grown in our backyard or under a grow lamp in a rented suburban house. Is it really a medicine when there are no controls no recommended doses no daily limits? We should not be enabling the growth of unregulated and unmonitored drugs. The science just isn't there yet. However the research completed already paints a bit of a grim picture.Dr Kate Baddock chair of the New Zealand Medical Association board wrote about the social impacts of cannabis use in her commentary on cannabis written for the NZMJ Digest on 1 October 2017. It reads "The use of cannabis in adolescents and young adults is associated with reduced academic achievement in a dose-related fashion. The pooled results from a large Australasian study suggest that the use of cannabis before the age of 15 may contribute as much as 17% toward failure to complete school go to university and attain a degree."I also note a point of concern that the member's bill allows a nominated support person. What will happen if that nominated support person is sent off to purchase some weed and they end up in a queue with a whole bunch of other people with medical exemptions lining up outside the local tinny house? What about the lady who's living on her own who grows a few plants and people find out that she's got a stash? Is her property in danger? Is she in danger? There need to be controls carefully thought through.The public interests in terms of medical marijuana are already being considered by the Government bill and thereby the public will still have an opportunity to submit in a select committee and that's really important—just on a more refined and focused bill than this one. I am compassionate to the needs of those who are suffering a terminal illness or who have a debilitating condition but this bill is too far removed from the use of marijuana as a medicine and therefore I cannot support it.SPEAKER: Before I put the vote I have noticed that there are only two members who have been seeking the call and who have not got it. This is an unusual situation but because it is a conscience vote I am going to seek the leave of the House for there to be two further speeches. Is there any objection to that? There appears to be none."