Reti ShaneDr SHANE RETI (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. I've listened to the discussion and I'd like to thank all members very much for their contributions. I'd like to respond to some of the statements that have been made. Dr Liz Craig had concerns around the eligibility for licence holders and offered the comment that taking into account the associations of people that may influence the licence holder may not be reasonable. Well that's straight from the Australian regulations. They figured it out that you can have an undue and unhealthy influence on a licence holder and that that needs to be managed. She talked about the open-endedness of saying the eligibility of licence holders could be at the discretion of the director-general. Much health legislation has that. Look at pretty much all of the COVID legislation at the moment. She talked about frustrating delays. We committed to have product within 12 months of enabling our bill.Chlöe Swarbrick wanted to talk about the title of the bill—said that No 2 was just a reproduction of her bill No 1. That's incorrect. Her bill also was titled the Other Matters Bill"; this is titled the No 2 bill because the Government of the day had the No 1 bill and so this was in contrast to what was being offered so she has that wrong. She's also rewriting history with her review of the discussions and negotiations we had. We can put those discussions on the table if you really want. We can talk about who came with a mandate to negotiate and who didn't but I'd suggest we don't. She talked about what the bill has as maybe being a pharmaceutical model. Look we view medicinal cannabis as being a drug like any other drug. You've heard me say that we believe that it can be placed on the over-the-counter framework. Some people believe it's a food for goodness' sake so we need to be reasonable here. However it is a drug like any other drug. It has a dose response curve. It goes through Medsafe and we were facilitating advanced procedures through Medsafe.Brooke van Velden got it. She got the key points and actually identified some of the detail around locations. Anahila thank you for your contribution.SPEAKER: Order!Dr SHANE RETI: She struggled—member Anahila; MP Anahila—SPEAKER: Kanongata'a-Suisuiki.Dr SHANE RETI: Thank you. I want to thank her for her contribution but she struggled with identifying a gang member. That's not hard at all. Look at all the firearms legislation. Furthermore the bill itself says: "is not a member of a gang as defined in section 4 of the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in the Government Premises Act 2013." So it's all there how to do that. Dr Sharma said the scheme already existed. No it doesn't. Where is the product? Further speakers and colleagues in the select committee thank you for your contributions but if this is working so well again where is the product? This bill puts in a range of provisions that strengthens the medicinal cannabis framework. We're proposing tightening the regulations for licence holders and employees. We're proposing tightening regulations for where medicinal cannabis can be grown. Is there anyone in this House tonight who really thinks it's OK to grow cannabis beside a wāhi tapu? I'm sorry I do not. Many of the unintended consequences and overlooked issues could also be addressed in select committee. We've talked about GP education. We've talked about low-dose CBD and the hurdles and difficult pathway it has to come to New Zealanders. Clinical research is another area that hasn't been discussed.Before I make my final summation I want to acknowledge the wide range of experts who contributed intellectual and industry knowledge to the formation of this bill. I want to acknowledge the Massachusetts health commissioner Kay Doyle; the Massachusetts health director of Government affairs David Lakeman; New Hampshire Senator Jeff Woodburn; New Hampshire health commissioner Nick Toumpas; Colorado director for marijuana Andrew Freedman; the New York commissioner of health Dr Howard Zucker and his team Esti Alonso Erin Hammond Josh Figuera; the Pharmacy Guild of New Zealand—they contributed a lot in how we figured out how we could actually dispense this. I'd like to thank the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners; MCANZ the Medicinal Cannabis Awareness New Zealand and Shane Le Brun have all been very helpful. I would also like to finally acknowledge Sarah Gwynn who was the drafting agent with PCO who did an awful lot of work—you can see this is 29 pages—and she really helped finesse the detail and it wouldn't look like this tonight without her help. So I want to thank all of those people.In summary we're seeking for this bill to be referred to select committee. We believe there are parts of it that can make the current framework that we have more robust and better. New Zealanders urgently need access to affordable medicinal cannabis and this bill would build on the work that has already been done. Let's give New Zealanders who are suffering pain and harm another tool in their tool box to relieve their suffering. I commend this bill to the House."