Reti ShaneDr SHANE RETI (Deputy Leader—National): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise to support my colleagues and to talk against this bill which I and we will not be supporting. We're not in support of this bill and the underlying Government philosophy of because it is it should be." For that and for many other reasons—which I'll outline here—we'll talk against this bill. There's five main issues that have with this bill. The first is I'm unconvinced with the ability to identify all the harmful products that are relevant to this discussion. I'm unconvinced with the quantitative and qualitative assessment of the drugs that we're interested in unconvinced—as my colleague the Hon Simon Bridges has said—with the evidence. Certainly it would seem to cut both ways but not a clear benefit to this sort of process—and I'd say that it's especially for those who are regular users. Arbitrarily those who are first-time users—conjecturally—may well have some benefit. Again conjecturally. But certainly for those who are regular users no clear benefit that they change behaviour once they've been through a pill testing process and been notified of what the contents are. The fourth issue I have is the lack of a select committee process. Surely where the evidence is unclear would warrant—even more so—a thorough select committee process not a legislative process that forces through poor legislation in short notice and under urgency. Now the Government has talked very proudly—and Mr Little said again today—about their health approach to drugs. I think it's worth some scrutiny exactly how the success of their health approach to drugs has been to date because what they've done in their past history probably reflects how well they will do in the future. I want to talk to an Official Information Act (OIA) request I got back last week which looks at the much touted Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill (No 2) last year which—as we all recall—said: if you're caught in use or possession instead of getting a conviction—one if it's thought to be beneficial for a health approach or two if it was in the public interest—you would go down a health approach pathway. Well and good.This legislation was passed on 7 August and it came into effect on 13 August. So how successful has that been? How successful has the Government been in implementing so far a health approach to drugs? Well what is the health approach to drugs? In my mind I'm thinking of something like the Portugal example for decriminalisation if you like where maybe you're referred to a counsellor maybe you're referred to a medical practitioner maybe there's a legal person there as well. What has been the Government's health approach to the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill (No 2)? I'll tell you what that is: the police send an automated text message. That's it. That's the health approach. That's the health approach the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill (No 2): New Zealand Police send an automated text message encouraging people to contact the alcohol and drug help service line. That's it. That's the health approach from this Government. What a poor approach. Furthermore how many people has it applied to? Well there's been 565 referrals since the legislation was enabled for a health approach—565. How many of those people took up the health approach? Forty-nine. Five hundred and sixty—did they have a cell phone? Did they even receive the health approach automated text message? Who knows? Who knows because there's no data. We've asked and we've got no replies to that. I'm referring to OIA H02007573 we received this last week. That in no shape or form is any form of health approach. Why would we have faith in this legislation further recommending a health approach when—no more than in this past year—we've seen this very poor implementation. We raised this in select committee when we said "Well exactly what discretion will police have and what is the compulsion if you like to participate?" Certainly in the Portugal example of decriminalisation there's a sense of compulsion. You have to appear in front of the panel and receive the advice and rehabilitative actions. Not here—just to go over it again—the health approach for this Government for the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill (No 2) is a text message. That falls well short of a health approach and doesn't even cut it. As we could see less than 10 percent have actually taken up that approach. And as I've mentioned I'm really interested in who received the text message do they even have a phone? There's a whole lot of further information which I've asked for which they decided not to put in the OIA. But I would say on this basis alone their ability to implement this legislation is unlikely. I don't believe it is sound. I don't believe the evidence is there. I just think this is harmful with a flawed philosophy from the very beginning and I think this will do more damage than it will do good. So you'll find this side of the House pushing back against this on many levels—I've identified five of them here—and we will fight this legislation."