Lole-Taylor Asenati: Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLole-Taylor Asenati: Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 06 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17540. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Le’aufa’amulia ASENATI LOLE-TAYLOR (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First as we welcome this bill the Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill to essentially ban legal highs and because we think that it is absolutely disgraceful that families and communities had to suffer for such a long time before we as parliamentarians thought it was necessary to correct the mistakes that were made in the original legislation. Indeed it was an embarrassing shameful and humiliating situation where 41 legal high products remained on the shelves. Those 41 products were actually sold in bulk through the Papatoetoe Heaven and Dreams shop. I think clause 7 in this new amendment bill will address most of the issues that have been raised by some of our local residents. I am sure that Pat Taylor and a few residents of Papatoetoe will now be very happy to know that the Government is actually doing something about this. Mr Paul Hutchison was saying that these situations are not easy to solve. I have a very strong message for you at this stage. It can be solved. The only reason it cannot be solved is that we are incapable of making it easy to be solved.On theCampbell Live show we could all see that Mr Dunne was completely out of touch. A situation that was also hurting a lot of families is that there was no clear acceptance from Mr Dunne at the time to understand the issues that have been raised as a result of legal highs. It is a national issue and it is one that is tragically affecting regional towns and low socio-economic areas the most. That is why we should have been more proactive earlier and that is the reason why instead of waiting for local councils this amendment bill should have been introduced a lot sooner.The side effects of legal highs include agitation confusion paranoia seizures violent behaviour haemoptysis and psychosis. I am sure that everyone is now an expert on the side effects of these particular drugs. I have seen frightening evidence of themajor health problems they cause and their direct influence on domestic and family violence and that is the sad part about it. It is that there have had to be deaths and there have had to be suicides before we could even respond. It is becoming the norm for New Zealand parliamentarians that we have to wait for a major incident to happen before we can actually fix the problem. Hundreds of people are reported to have experienced harm in one form or another from legal highs but this is only the tip of the iceberg. Beyond the hundreds of sad cases involving injury and death there has been a failure to eliminate a threat posed by legal highs and it has boosted an unhealthy culture of drug taking in New Zealand.We now have an image as a country that is receptive to taking drugs. Mr Dunne sat on his hands while a culture of synthetic drugs was taking place. I even spoke to Mr Todd McClay quite a number of times. I told him that something needed to be done. His response was that the bill that was passed last year was the best option that this country could take. The reality is that 147 legal high shops remained with 50 of them in the Auckland area. Although the number of legal high outlets is lower you can still be sure that the number of people taking drugs did not come down. That is the reason why there were long queues in places like Tauranga and Te Awamutu and some of the outlets throughout the country. You can find the majority of these outlets in places like DargavilleKarikari andEdgecombe. About 82 are specialist drug shops judging by their names such as Heaven and Dreams and Cosmic Corner and they are sold in tobacconists video stores sex shops tattooists and bodypiercers. With fewer outlets as proudly announced by Mr Dunne it definitely does not mean that there are fewer people taking drugs.A new generation of young people are getting the wrong message. They are getting the wrong message about synthetic drugs and it is not the message that we should be portraying or putting in place for the future generations of this country. This drug-taking culture is affecting everyone in New Zealand. During thePolyfest festival secondary school students were actually waiting outside the Heaven and Dreams drug store because they wanted to pick up some of their drugs before going to the festival. The actual owner was giving it to them from the side door of his shop. These are some of the things that we ought to be looking at and we are supposed to be protecting our young generations from.Many of these legal high shops are willing to sell to anyone. They will not be willing to admit that they are selling to the wrong age. Legal highs are an unnecessary temptation for teenagers and there was not enough accountability for these retailers. The number of people using legal highs is now vast and families communities police and hospitals must now deal with a new stream of addicted users. The serious threat to the health of New Zealand families and communities was palpable.Since the initial Psychoactive Substances Act was passed New Zealand First has been advocating on behalf of concerned local residents to do something or to reverse the position we had. Tonight I am actually very happy that we are looking at a complete ban on these items. We became aware that the decision to support the Psychoactive Substances Act was a mistake but it was based on the information that was made available to us at the time. The call for action on legal highs was nationwide. Over 30000 people have actually joined a Facebook group and those who took to the streets for a march against legal highs ought to be taken notice of and ought to be considered seriously. New Zealand First was there. It was a country-wide protest including over 20 towns from Whangarei to Invercargill. These were people who had experienced firsthand the damage legal highs were capable of inflicting on individuals and society. What I saw was a community standing up for itself because the Government was notstanding up for the community. It was a mistake in the first place and communities and families were made to suffer before the Government could actually respond.This new legislation proposes to ban all synthetic drugs until they are proven. We would prefer an outright ban because that is what much of the community has asked for. We have seen living proof that the notion of reducing harm—and I think there has been talk about low risk. The right translation or interpretation of “low risk” is that there is some risk. When there is some risk whether it is low risk or high risk that means there is still risk. Those are the things that we need to pay attention to. Attitudes like those held by those who said that there is low risk must also be eliminated. Those are the attitudes that should not be welcome in the debate on legal highs.If appropriate measures were taken and proper regulations put in place when the initial Psychoactive Substances Act was passed we would not have seen some of the attempted suicides in Manurewa we would not have seen some of the domestic violence that we have actually witnessed inŌtara and the people in Papatoetoe would have been able to go to bed at night without the fear of some badly behaved local residents who were actually desperate for their synthetic drugs. Many other countries have applied a law that invokes a straight ban by using broad terms to encompass all types of synthetic cannabis. New Zealand is the only country in the world to adopt a free-market clinical-trial regime for recreational drugs. The Government is now taking the right action and the term “low risk” should be eliminated from the debate altogether.We should not be able to look for approval of any low-risk products in the future. We should be looking for products that are completely safe and have no risk at all. Two clear requirements must be present in the law on recreational synthetic drugs: first to prove the product is safe before it can be sold and second to notify authorities if there are changes to its composition. That should be part of the Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill. That should be what we are supporting and that is what we should be focusing on in order for the people of New Zealand to be satisfied with what we have actually introduced here tonight.It is important to specify that safety measures have been put in place and that everyone is in support of those safety measures. That is what New Zealand First would like to see happen and we are pleased to know that this week we will be able to turn round and tell those legal high shops that they can no longer operate in the way that they have been.