Clark DavidMISUSE OF DRUGS AMENDMENT BILLSecond ReadingHon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): I move That the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill be now read a second time. I want to thank everybody who has made a submission on this bill including those who came to speak to the Health Committee in person. I also want to thank the members of the Health Committee for their thorough consideration of the bill. The Health Committee has recommended that the bill progress with two changes. I want to start with an overview of the bill. It will do three important things. The first is that it will classify AMB-FUBINACA and 5F-ADB as class A drugs. The second is that it will reaffirm the existing police discretion for personal possession and use drug offences and the third is that it will enable temporary class drug orders to be issued to better control emerging and potentially harmful substances. These changes are being introduced to address the harm caused by drug use. They align with the Government's intent to treat drug use as a health issue. The changes will be supported by an increase in health and social services for users and will allow the police to focus enforcement efforts on suppliers and manufacturers of these harmful and dangerous drugs. I want to now acknowledge some comments from submitters on the bill across those three areas that I mentioned at the outset. So firstly on the classification of AMB-FUBINACA and 5F-ADB why are we doing this? The use of synthetic drugs is a major public health problem. Since June 2017 there have been a total of 50 to 55 deaths provisionally linked to the use of these two dangerous synthetic drugs: 5F-ADB and AMB-FUBINACA. The bill will classify these two drugs as class A drugs to reflect the high risk of harm from these drugs and that was aligned with the recommendation of the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs. This classification will give the police and customs the search and seizure powers that they will need to be able to better disrupt supply and reduce the availability of these drugs to the people who use them. I want to encourage the police to use those powers to go after those who are manufacturing and supplying these drugs.Most submitters who commented on this provision supported the classification. There were a number of submitters though who were concerned about the impact of this change on users. Some were concerned that users would be put at risk of a criminal prosecution and that historically a classification has not reduced use or harm. I do acknowledge the submitters' concerns. However these drugs have a high risk of harm. The new classification will provide police with greater powers to target the suppliers while the discretion will allow the police to consider whether a health approach is appropriate for users or not and they need to weigh these things up carefully.The second issue that I want to move on to is the reaffirmation of the existing police discretion and the submissions made to the committee that relate to that. The bill specifies that when considering whether a prosecution is required in the public interest for drug use and possession consideration should be given to whether a therapeutic approach would be more beneficial. Now police already use this discretion on a daily basis across a range of matters including when deciding whether to prosecute for personal possession and use drug offences. The bill affirms the current police approach which is consistent with the current operational policy and indeed is supported by the police. The bill also makes specific reference to considering whether a health approach is beneficial strengthening the Government's health-based approach.Many submitters recommended that extra resources be made available to the police to implement the change including for police treatment for treatment facilities and for health services to deal with any consequent referrals. I agree that a health-based approach must have sufficient services and supports in place to implement these changes and that's why of course the Government invested $1.9 billion in its Budget in mental health and addictions of which—Angie Warren-Clark: How much?Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: $1.9 billion in mental health and addictions. That includes an investment of $200 million focused on new mental health and addiction facilities across the country recognising the need to create therapeutic environments; $213 million in this Budget for operational expenses directed at the district health boards to ensure that the specialist services delivered to mental health and addiction to folks wrestling with those challenges are better resourced; and specifically beyond that $44 million over four years to strengthen specialist drug addiction services.Now police are working with health officials to develop a referral pathway and the Police Commissioner will issue tailored guidance to front-line officers on how they apply their discretion for these offences. That'll help police officers to assess when it is in the public interest to prosecute and when it is not in the public interest to prosecute on a matter of drug use and whether it is indeed where someone has crossed the line. If a decision is made not to prosecute the guidance will indicate other options such as pre-charge warnings and connections to health services for assessment triage and referral. Now some submitters were concerned that the police would use this discretion in an unequal way and particularly for Māori. Now what I would say is that police have been taking steps towards addressing inequities with a focus on unbiased decision-making. For example police are rolling out a programme to directly address unconscious bias for all levels of the organisations.The third area I wanted to talk about submissions on was on the temporary class drug orders. The bill itself enables temporary class drug orders to be issued by the Minister for emerging and potentially harmful substances—to control them very promptly recognising that the formulation of these drugs can change over time. Now when these are put in place it means that those temporary class drugs are treated in the same way as class C controlled drugs would be giving police the powers that they need for search and seizure in order to investigate and to focus their efforts on cracking down on those who manufacture and supply these dangerous drugs and that class C effective classification is in place for a period of 12 months when a temporary class drug order is issued.The synthetics drug market is rapidly evolving with new drugs constantly emerging and allowing these temporary drug class orders to be issued means we can move swiftly and appropriately to curb potentially harmful new synthetic drugs. Most submitter feedback focused on how manufacturers could change recipes and the need indeed to be fleet-footed in issuing these temporary drug orders so that we stop the cycle where those manufacturers and suppliers had been getting away with reformulating to try and avoid the law.I do acknowledge the concerns and I would also say we've got in place the drug early warning system. We're progressing that to ensure that information on drug supply networks is shared to reduce harm so that agencies can more quickly respond when new drug formulations are entering the market place and that enforcement responses can also be moved more quickly. Substances can then be classified more quickly allowing them to be treated as a class C substance.Following these submissions the Health Committee has recommended that the bill progress with two minor changes.Hon Michael Woodhouse: No it hasn't.Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: The first is to remove product name" as a term used to describe a substance. I think the House will accept the select committee recommended this although the member opposite says it didn't. They did recommend that the removal of "product name" happen as a term used to describe a substance in the temporary class drug order provision. The term was used when temporary drug class notices were previously introduced and reflects the fact that there were legal products on the market. Now since the Psychoactive Substances Act 2013 came into force there are no longer legal products marketed under a product name.The second change was an amendment to better align the bill with the policy intent. The discretion to prosecute in the bill as drafted applies to all offences in section 7 including supply and administration. The intent of the bill is for the discretion to only apply to possession and use offences and the amendment will mean the discretion only applies to possession and use.So again I want to thank the submitters and the members of the Health Committee for their thorough consideration. I consider these changes improve the bill and I commend this bill to the House."