Scott Lynda: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee Third Reading 
Scott Lynda: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:626;Page:21483] 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 Part 1 of this bill relates to substantive amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 and National supports this part. This was the original bill that came to the Health Committee after the first reading and it deals with the issue of precursor substances for the manufacture of P methamphetamine. 
When I was at medical school we had to study some drugs that were just given to us and ephedrine was one of the drugs pulled out for me to study. So I did an intensive study on it and found that it had very little use apart from the fact that it dried up one’s nose when one had a cold. At that time we did not realise that it would be used as a precursor for the very dangerous party drug P which has been responsible for a huge amount of harm in this country. That harm has come in the form of addiction and we have seen many a TV programme on people who engage in theft to try to get the money to buy this drug and fuel their habit. Methamphetamine laboratories have been found throughout New Zealand. A large laboratory was found and destroyed in my electorate Marlborough 2 years ago. The people who engaged in that activity are now suffering the consequences because P was able to be expeditiously scheduled under the Misuse of Drugs Act. 
That process was set up by Wyatt Creech and progressed by the Labour Government when it came to office in 1999. It allowed us to act very rapidly to put P methamphetamine on to a schedule which meant that those who were found to be producing that drug could then suffer the most severe consequences in respect of penalties and time in prison. Then we found that there was no restriction on importing the precursor substances. As chemists did more to protect themselves against theft of cold remedies that had ephedrine and pseudoephedrine in them people were found at the border with suitcases and suitcases of those drugs. They were bringing them across the border in order to produce methamphetamine and there was nothing to stop them. 
There was debate within the Health Committee about whether this bill should be used to schedule something like precursor substances but everybody agreed that we should do so because we should be helping the police and the border control authorities to try to improve the situation regarding this drug. But the extension of that form of lawmaking has been of concern to the Regulations Review Committee which said that significant matters of policy and principle should always be dealt with in the primary legislation that comes to this House and that process has stood us in good stead for most of the time that this Parliament has been sitting. The process means all members of Parliament look at a law and examine a bill and the bill is subject to the select committee process where the public have the right to make submissions. Then we bring it back to the House and in the Committee stage we once again see whether we have got it right and try to make good legislation that will achieve the desired effect. So the Regulations Review Committee said that that was what we should do. 
We did make an exception to that with the expeditious scheduling of controlled drugs because everyone here felt that the time it takes to get legislation through the House was too long for things like Ecstasy Fantasy or P plus now the precursor substances. But when it comes to using that process for something that will need regulation—that is benzylpiperazine a drug that the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs has said is not of high risk of harm—National members have concerns.