O'Connor SimonSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Unfortunately a lot of what we're hearing in this space is a lot of smoke and mirrors and elements of what we've just heard from the last speaker Chlöe Swarbrick is part of it. She mistook heckling for members on this side myself included asking her for the journal that she quoted some research from. We actually asked her how many citations there were and that was not forthcoming. People like me are very keen on things medical and things scientific and I think very much that's where the National Party is wanting to go through this second reading.As colleagues prior to me have said the National Party will be supporting this bill at second reading but on the proviso that the committee of the whole House actually begins to look seriously at the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) put forward obviously by every member in this House and I'll be interested in those but particularly the SOPs of Dr Shane Reti which is actually putting forward the regulatory approach that this House rightly needs and demands because part of the smoke and mirrors including from the last speaker is talking about a regulatory approach in a bill that does not exist. There are no regulations prescribed in this bill. There are great wishes and intentions—smoke and mirrors. All that this side of the House is asking is that actually the regulations—and actually Christopher Bishop spoke to it very well—line up who can produce the ages the medical qualities—all those conditions. Let's lay those out in this Parliament and discuss them.The other side and those who are supporting the current bill which of note has come back unchanged therefore with all its initial faults are effectively just asking us to trust and believe in an area that is actually and remains controversial. I've said it many times in this House: simply putting the word medicinal" in front of an illicit or even licit drug does not make it a medicine. If something is a medicine—if something is a medicine—then in many ways we can ask and this House should ask: why doesn't the sort of wunderdroge—the wonder drug—of cannabis fit under our existing medicinal laws?Chlöe Swarbrick: The war on drugs.SIMON O'CONNOR: Chlöe Swarbrick says the war on drugs because that's always the great go to. Had she spoken to her big pharma friends and the likes of Rothmans and that who are going to be very keen to actually get into your big dope system of business that you talked about—DEPUTY SPEAKER: I hope it's not my big dope.SIMON O'CONNOR: Sorry Madam Deputy Speaker. I'm sure you won't. But Chlöe Swarbrick seems really keen on this new business opportunity which I'm sure again—because of course if she's been reading the literature she knows that the big tobacco companies are investing in this already—for medicinal reasons I'm sure Chlöe Swarbrick.But actually this bill does not address those matters and that's a problem. I say it again: if something is medical then why not put a proper medical structure around it. In fact put it through Medsafe. Let's have that discussion. Let's also use proper medical terms. Terminal illness is actually relatively straightforward. Whether something is 6 12 or 18 months terminal becomes less clear. Why I suppose the Ministry of Health was not willing to recommend chronic illness as a proper medical definition is because it's incredibly hard to define. It does raise suspicions in my mind and in many people's minds that really this is just using the medical cloak to provide a legitimacy to wider use of cannabis.Then all of a sudden we have words like "advanced progressive conditions". The doctors in this House will know that that is incredibly ambiguous language. "Advanced" is not medical. "Progressive" is not medical. "Condition" probably is but actually I can think of thousands of conditions. This language is incredibly incredibly ambiguous. And then all around it is the continued desire to have loose-leaf cannabis—so one could smoke their way to health which of course raises the other contradiction of how the Government side is going to out of one side of its mouth support Smoke-free Aotearoa 2025 and then out of the other side say that smoking of loose-leaf cannabis is perfectly legitimate. I suspect they'll say it just doesn't count. So there's an inherent range of contradictions here. All I'm asking this House to do—and it's the reason I'm still happy to support this bill at second reading—is to give the well-thought-out researched approach particularly of Dr Shane Reti a chance. Let this House put the appropriate regulations in place so that actually cannabis where it has an appropriate medical use can if you will flourish.I've had the good fortune of being in hospices and working if you will alongside palliative care physicians who do an amazing job and have often asked for access to cannabis. And yes I think there's a great opportunity here. But as I've said before to try and take this bill to misuse it—to misuse the terminal or chronic health of others—to legitimise effectively dope smoking is a step far too far.At the end of the day—and I'm sorry to have to repeat it again Madam Deputy Speaker—it's all well and good for those university students studying Nordic literature to want to smoke dope on the ability of a chronic illness. The effects of this drug can be terrible on our communities and I've had the misfortune of having to work with those people as well to try and repair things. Where things keep medical we're in great support. Where things medical get misused to simply allow some people to smoke dope we will not support it and I will not support it. But I commend this to the House to the second reading.DEPUTY SPEAKER: I call Anahila Kanongata'a-Suisuiki. It's a five minute call."