Horan Brendan: Psychoactive Substances Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHoran Brendan: Psychoactive Substances Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 09 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:11800. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]BRENDAN HORAN (Independent):In speaking to Part 1 clauses 4 and 6 of the Psychoactive Substances Bill and also on the Supplementary Order Paper in my name I would just say that I am happy with the wording of that Supplementary Order Paper 271. The wording is very similar to legislation of other advisory bodies such as the National Ethics Advisory Committee the Office for Disability Issues the Advisory Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology and the Health Quality and Safety Commission.What I would like to do is draw the Committee’s attention to a letter that I received from somebody who is currently serving time in Manawatū Prison. If you will allow me I will read this letter. “Hi my name is”—and he does not want his name to be known. “I am currently in Manawatū Prison doing a 19-month sentence. I am writing to the Government about the effects of legal highs. I started legal highs about 2 years ago so I could stop smoking weed. While I was smoking weed the only thing that made me want to stop smoking weed was to pass a drug test for my job; it wasn’t any effects from it. Then I started buying legals. At the start of smoking I would only need one or two cones which is about the size of my fingernail so not much at all and then I would be completely smashed. So this happened for about 2 weeks then after it I started doing nothing or close to nothing so I started smoking more of it. Now this is where I started to notice that I needed more to get a hit so I was buying at least two bags a day and smoking it all very quickly.”“Then I tried to stop smoking it and this is when I noticed I couldn’t. I was 100 percent addicted to it and was no longer smoking it for a buzz but was because I didn’t have any I would become very angry and it was easy for me to just flip out. I was having cold sweats every night and having to run to the toilet to spew up. This went on every day and every night. If I didn’t have any money I would become nervous and lie to my family just to get $20. So now I went from smoking weed which I was smoking ever since I was 14 and had no problems at all to smoking this so-called legal weed which changed my life as for me to do anything—and I mean anything like eat drink go to courses sleep leave my house etc.—I would need to have a cone of legals and as soon as I did I wouldn’t feel sick or anything and could then get on with whatever it was. But it didn’t last long till I needed more and also had to live with spewing up every day and feeling like”—and I will take a little poetic licence here—“[faecal excrement] when I didn’t have it. I am only one of thousands that this is happening to and every one of my mates smoke it too and they tell me the shops—by stopping legal highs from being available it will stop the same things happening to them. But the thing is we don’t want to smoke it any more but it’s so hard to stop when it’s as easy as walking into a dairy and buying it over the counter.”“I know making it illegal won’t stop it from being sold but will make it harder to get. It only takes up to 1 or 2 weeks of not smoking it and you can get your life back. But the only reason I have managed to stop is that my partner died and I had to go from her funeral then straight to jail. Now I have been in jail for 1½ months and I feel super good and off legal highs and if I never was sent to jail I don’t think I could have stopped smoking it by myself because the craving for it is so strong. So I am begging you please help my family and my friends and all the New Zealanders that are stuck and don’t know what to do by stopping legal highs from being sold at our shops. And I know for a fact that everyone that is addicted will be thankful and be able to get their lives back. I don’t think the Government actually knows how bad it is until it happens to their kids or friends so please get this [faecal excrement] banned and at least harder to get. Thank you for your time.” I think that sums it up. This is a good bill and I support it.