Simpson Scott: Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSimpson Scott: Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 06 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17523. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): It is my intention to take just a short call on the Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill in the name of the Minister of Health the Hon Tony Ryall. In doing so I am pleased to note that as of 8 May at 12.01 the products that are currently on the market will become unapproved products that there will be heavy penalties for selling or supplying them and that it will also become illegal to possess them. That should be an adequate warning to anyone who is considering stockpiling.I say that 20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing; 20/20 foresight however is a far more rare and unusual thing. It amazes me that the previous speaker from the Labour Party Clare Curran could stand up and regale the House with her version of history and her version of what she thinks is the truth when she and her party voted to support this legislation as did every other member in the House with the honourable exception of the Hon John Banks the member for Epsom. When he was speaking earlier on in this debate he said we collectively got it wrong and we probably did. We did collectively get it wrong and the mistake we made was to apply a transition period to these drugs. We thought as a collective House that that was the right thing to do. It turns out that it was not. These are complicated issues. They are not just complicated issues for this Parliament for New Zealand and for New Zealanders but they are complicated issues for the entire world.Just a week or two ago inTime magazine I noticed there was a very good and comprehensive article about how the Americans are trying to grapple with this exact same issue. The article said “The most complicated drug problem in the world right now isn’tmeth or cocaine or heroin. It is synthetic drugs”. I want to make just a single point before sitting down and commending this bill to the House. It has got to do with the Greens’ position on this bill. Many of us put in a lot of time and effort to convince a lot of voters and put forward compelling cases as to why we should come to this Parliament to represent our constituencies and the people who put us in this Parliament. To come to Parliament and then as a caucus make a united decision to abstain on a hard piece of legislation is the ultimate parliamentary cop-out. The Greens to come to this House and sanctimoniously lecture members of the House about their positions on a whole range of issues yet when they come to a hard decision simply not to take it and not to make it is as I say the absolute ultimate cop-out. I am sure that Green supporters all around the country are watching that lack of decision on their part.There is an old proverb that says that when you reach a fork in the road take it—when you reach a fork in the road take it. My invitation to the Greens is that they should reconsider their cop-out position and that they should reconsider their decision to abstain from this legislation. They should actually come out make a decision and show that maybe one day in the future they could potentially be a fit and able coalition partner for a future Government many many years away from today. But right now they have shown and proved completely and conclusively that they are not fit to make any kind of hard decision and that they do not do so on the hard issues of the day. I commend this bill to the House.