Misuse of Drugs (Industrial Hemp) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Misuse of Drugs (Industrial Hemp) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. This bill has been before this Parliament for some time. It was introduced in early 2001, at a time when I think it is fair to say the Government was dithering on the issue. There was growing public concern about a law that did not; allow the growing of industrial hemp. The arable division of Federated Farmers had expressed support for the idea, and the Government was considering what to do about that growing pressure. The bill was introduced in early 2001, and between its introduction and first reading the Government announced that it would proceed with 2 years of trials of industrial hemp. That was a very positive thing, and, similarly to my Clean Slate Bill, it basically forced the Government’s hand and required it to make up its mind one way or the other about where it would go on the issue. To the Government’s credit, it took that as a positive move and got behind industrial hemp in so far as allowing the trials to proceed. I have to take at least some credit for that, along with Rod Donald, the co-leader of the Greens, who had also been agitating on the issue for some time.

The bill was referred to the Primary Production Committee. I said at the time that I expected it to be amended—in particular, to allow the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to create regulations by Order in Council. I had 2 weeks to prepare the bill between the selection of my Clean Slate Bill and the next ballot, so the drafting of it was fairly rushed, although it is a simple bill. The bill went to the select committee, and I fully expected that in spite of fact that we had trials going ahead, the select committee would hear submissions and perhaps use the submissions from the industry as a way of helping to develop the regulation of those trials. Unfortunately, the select committee took the view that we would allow the trials to go ahead before hearing submissions, and I went along with that.

We had the first year of trials, and the evaluations were extremely successful. No security issues were identified by the working-party. There was a small problem with bird strike, because birds love hemp seeds, and for many years that had been the main object of growing hemp seeds—for bird food. The select committee asked for an environmental evaluation in light of that, and it was quite proper for it to do so. At the end of the next year there was also an extremely good evaluation of the trials. There was no problem with bird strike in the second year that I am aware of, although that may have been the case, and the environmental evaluation by the working-party showed that there were no significant issues to be addressed in terms of any environmental risk posed by the growing of industrial hemp. Of course, that makes a lot of sense—it is a light-loving plant, it is highly palatable to pretty well any animal that comes across it, and the seed is destroyed in the animal’s digestive tract. So it is not likely that it would pose a great risk. Nevertheless, that did not stop some members of the committee from making much ado about nothing, and basically not letting the facts get in the way of a good story, as they say.

I think there was an abuse of process, because at the end of the second year of trials the select committee announced that even though it had said it would hear submissions at the end of the trials rather than at the beginning, it was then making the decision not to hear any submissions at all, because we had just had 2 years of trials. That is very, very unusual. In fact, it is possibly an unprecedented thing for a select committee to have a bill before it and not even call for submissions on it. That is quite extraordinary, and I think it is also quite an abuse of the process. I have to highlight, in particular, the contributions made by some Government members—Dover Samuels, Janet Mackey, and Damien O’Connor—by Gerrard Eckhoff from ACT, and by Phil Heatley from the National Party. They went out of their way to be as obstructive as possible on this issue. To be fair, the chair, David Carter, behaved very reasonably and addressed the issues. Doug Woolerton of New Zealand First also behaved very reasonably. Both those members actually wanted to look at the evidence. However, it is fair to say that some of the members of the committee, to their shame, saw they could gain more political mileage by providing an obstacle to the development of a viable hemp industry and the political capital they could gain from having a bit of a kick around on the issue, rather than by actually standing up for farming people. Gerrard Eckhoff is often proud of what a farmer he is. Standing in the way of farmers having the opportunity to do what they have asked this Parliament to allow them to do, which is to grow industrial hemp, is to the shame of those members.

As a result of the select committee’s unwillingness to do a bit of work and hear some submissions, we now have the ridiculous situation that hemp is being regulated by Medsafe. I think if members of the committee had heard submissions, they would have heard a pretty much unanimous view from the hemp industry that Medsafe is entirely the wrong body to issue those regulations, and that it should be done by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. To be fair to Medsafe, I think that Medsafe does not particularly want that role either; it has just ended up in Medsafe’s lap. When we go to Medsafe’s website and look at what its mission is—this is the body that is to regulate industrial hemp, which is an industrial crop used for building products, for cloth such as this, and for other products—we see that it is to enhance the health of New Zealanders by regulating medicines and medical devices, to maximise safety and the benefit gained from them. It is absolutely bizarre that that body has been put in charge of regulating the hemp industry. I was scratching my head about that issue, so I asked some of my friends why they thought that should be the case. The obvious answer came back that when it comes to evaluating the use of cannabis for medicine and we need medical advice on that we go to the police and judges, so it stands to reason that if we want agricultural advice we should ask a doctor. There is a great logic in that. It is a slightly Orwellian logic, but I can see that there is logic in that.

There was a lot of concern about the draft regulations put out by Medsafe, and that is not Medsafe’s fault. Industrial hemp is just not Medsafe’s area of expertise, so we would not expect it to get that particularly right. It was a concern that when Rod Donald and I met with some of the Medsafe people, it became clear to us that they simply were not aware of many of the uses of industrial hemp. Food products, in particular, were the things they were unaware of—food products produced overseas quite happily and legally for the health benefits of people in Canada, all over Europe, and in places such as that, but products that we cannot have in this country. However, I am pleased to see that the Government and the regulatory body have responded to the comments on the draft regulations, and I am pleased to say that there is an attempt to address at least some of concerns. I commend the Minister and Medsafe on that. I understand the new regulations are due for release in January. I have a question concerning the people who want to plant industrial hemp this year: where will they be left with regard to the regulations?

There is a big issue outstanding, which is the hemp seed issue. The then Australia New Zealand Food Authority rejected hemp as a food, despite the overwhelming international evidence of its nutritional value due to its profile of amino acids and essential fatty acids, gamma linolenic acid, and the like. The Minister, to her credit, got an exemption for New Zealand that allowed us to produce hemp seed oil, and so now we have New Zealand - made hemp seed oil—cold-pressed hemp seed oil pressed by a company in Ashburton. That is very good to see. But one of the problems is that New Zealand is not able to be competitive with other countries, because it cannot use the other by-products from that. We can produce the oil, but we cannot use the seed cake as a by-product. Farmers in Canada can grow hemp for food—they can make pasta out of the seed cake. We cannot do that, because it is illegal in this country. I think that the Government should look at addressing that issue with some urgency, and I hope to see the Minister of Health do that.

The Greens are unhappy, and I am unhappy, that this bill will not proceed. Clearly it will be voted down by this House, and we think that that is a shame. It is still the most sensible way to deal with hemp—to allow it to be regulated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, rather than by the Ministry of Health; it does not belong in there. But I am pleased to see that hemp is in production in this country, and is being grown. We have products available as a result—food products, insulation, and various other things. There is a great future for papers and building products, as well. The long-term future is looking particularly good for the industry. I have to pay tribute to the people who drew the attention of this country to hemp in the early 1990s, for the first time. Initially they were people like Mike Finlayson, Chris Fowlie, Rob Uberfeldt, Gina Thompson, Marion Barnes, and myself, and later people like Brian Slight, Mac McIntosh, and others. I say good on them for their work. This country is the better for it, despite the complacency of this Parliament.

Labour supported this bill’s referral to the select committee. However, due to my announcement on 27 April 2001 on the cultivation of industrial hemp under strict guidelines, this legislation now proves to be unnecessary. I would like, first of all, to thank the Primary Production Committee for the work it did on this bill, and I particularly commend the chairperson. He was an extremely good and credible chair, and I thank the committee members for the work they did on this bill.

I would like to say to Nandor Tanczos that I agree that his bill did act as a catalyst towards us having agreement on allowing hemp trials in New Zealand. He can take credit for that. I heard his speech tonight, and he is not happy that we are not regulating hemp under the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. He would like to have seen it go in as a crop alongside any other crop, and grown in the same way that we would grow any industrial crop. However, it is the decision of the Government that we ought to, with a new crop such as this—one that does have some risks—regulate it under the Misuse of Drugs Act rather than under the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. That is the decision we have made, and we have gone about putting in place regulations to do that.

I have to say that I support the Primary Production Committee’s recommendation that the bill do not proceed. This bill did seek to amend the Misuse of Drugs Act by inserting a new definition of industrial hemp and excluding industrial hemp from the definition of a prohibited plant. The changes would mean that any plant of the cannabis species that contained less than 0.3 percent of THC would no longer be a controlled drug. In effect, anyone could grow industrial hemp without a licence, and this would have had major implications for enforcing the Misuse of Drugs Act.

Hemp seeds, as the member knows, cannot be distinguished from seeds with high THC without growing them and testing the resultant plant for THC. Only scientific testing can measure the levels of THC in plant material to distinguish between hemp and cannabis. So it would have meant that police and the Customs Service would have had to undertake scientific tests on every plant, seed, or cannabis preparation imported before a charge could be laid in relation to a cannabis offence. So when we looked at this issue and looked at where we go to in the future, I believe we needed to take cautious steps.

In the future things may well change, I say to the member. Who knows? But in allowing the cultivation of hemp, we believed we needed to do it carefully. We needed to do it in a considered way, and we needed to retain good controls over it. I do share the member’s surprise, however, that he received such a hard time at the select committee from ACT—the party that believes in free enterprise, the party that believes in agriculture. ACT was not even prepared to give hemp a go when it comes to an industrial crop. I say to Gerrard Eckhoff that I hope he never applies for a licence to grow hemp, should it be successful in New Zealand. Maybe he would not qualify under the good character provisions! However, he will give us his assurance tonight that he will never grow it, even if it is a boomer crop for New Zealand and provides many, many benefits.

I think one of the important things is what has happened since we decided to carry out the trials. The trials have been carried out in New Zealand on hemp growing since 2001. Nandor Tanczos outlined some of the problems they had in the very early trials, with bird strikes and some people who did not follow the rules. There were a few issues like that that had to be addressed. But in the main they have been successful in terms of looking at the way one would regulate. What we do not know is whether hemp will grow well in New Zealand and whether it will become a very lucrative crop right alongside the rest of our agricultural crops.

The trials did give us a very good idea of how we could regulate this particular crop at this time. We worked through what sort of regulatory framework we would have. The proposed regulations that we have will control where hemp is grown, what seed cultivars can be grown, what THC testing is required, what records are required to be kept, reporting requirements, security requirements for seeds and plants, provision for destruction or requirement for harvest, and audit and inspection. So a lot of work has been going into what those regulations will be. I think one of the important things was to draw up the regulations and then go out and consult with the industry as to whether it thought the regulations were workable. The industry was very cooperative in working on the regulations, and they are planned to be in place by 1 January 2005.

To those who want to grow this crop under the regime that this Parliament is putting in place, I say that I wish them well. I think there will be a place for the products from hemp, should it be a successful crop, because I, for one, am a regular user of hemp hand cream from the Body Shop. I can recommend it to members. Some of my colleagues over there are nodding their heads. My tube is empty, but should those members go down to the Body Shop tomorrow, they too could have the smoothest hands in New Zealand—and that comes from the use of a product that could be grown in New Zealand. Having said that, I point out that it will be grown under a regulatory regime that is more severe than the member wanted. But when we are looking at a crop that does have potential dangers and risk, I think we must be careful. Over time, we can look at how that proceeds, how well it is going, and how those risks are being managed.

I am sorry that the member is not happy with all that has happened, but I know he is happy that he has acted as a catalyst for opening the way for growing hemp in New Zealand.

I rise to speak against the Misuse of Drugs (Industrial Hemp) Amendment Bill. I do that as a member of the National caucus and, of course, as the chair of the Primary Production Committee. I thank the Hon Annette King for her kind words at the start of her contribution to this debate. I always worry about what I have done wrong when the Minister of Health congratulates me and thanks me for my involvement. I thank her also for her display of the well-worn tube, and for extolling the virtues of hemp oil, and I note the Minister’s smooth hands.

In debating the Misuse of Drugs (Industrial Hemp) Amendment Bill, it is significant that it is in the name of Nandor Tanczos. I have some advice on this occasion for that member. He should make sure that his time in Parliament is not publicly associated with one word: “cannabis”. That man has come into Parliament and said quite publicly that he wants to have cannabis legalised, and now he is associated with another piece of legislation—to allow the industrial use of cannabis sativa for the production of oils, creams, fibre, etc. I say to that member that he needs to be aware of the difficulty of being a single-issue member of Parliament. In the brief time that he may still be here, he needs to take the opportunity to widen his horizons and be prepared to debate more than one issue.

As the Minister herself so adequately put it, this legislation is now completely superfluous. It would have been irresponsible for the select committee to come up with any other recommendation than that the legislation not proceed further. I listened to the excited words of the Green member of Parliament when he was before our select committee and at the time we were deliberating the legislation, and I felt that although he certainly took the opportunity to express his disappointment, he was agreeable that that was the most positive and responsible course of action. The reason this legislation is superfluous is that between the time it was drafted and the time it came into the House the Government moved to allow a trial of industrial hemp.

I would like to go through the report we received from Ministry of Health officials prior to us making our recommendations, and I shall comment on one or two of the issues that needed to be examined through the trial process. The first was the issue of security. We received reports from officials noting that the local police and growers liaised well and in fact there were no issues of security. There was certainly an issue involving two particular crops where the THC level went above the permitted level of 0.35 percent. That required the immediate destruction of those two crops, and to the best of my knowledge that particular operation was also carried out without rancour or ill will. Nandor Tanczos referred to the third problem—that of bird strike, which resulted in farmers having to consider the added costs of covering the crop or purchasing a bird scarer, which is no cheap compliance cost for a crop such as that.

I recall one issue at the select committee that would be of interest to the Green member, and that was the sourcing of seed from overseas. I well remember two or three members—Gerard Eckhoff, our esteemed ACT member, being one of them—picking up on the issue of whether the Green member was able to assure New Zealand that the seed we were then importing for industrial hemp had not actually been genetically modified somewhere overseas before it entered New Zealand. Certainly, that question was put to the officials, and they had no ability at all to assure us that there had been any testing of the seed that came forward and was then planted in the trial. That was an interesting minor conflict of interest that the Green member had to suffer the indignity of as the select committee examined that issue.

The real problem that stuck me in the industrial hemp trial—and it was not discussed or brought to us by the officials—was the issue of the economics of growing industrial hemp. No information was presented to the select committee in that regard, at all. Nor should there have been. However, I suspect that the primary question to be asked by the less-dedicated triallist in this area is: “How does the cost of cropping industrial hemp compare with any of the more orthodox crops available to farmers to choose?” That, I suspect, will be the issue that determines hemp as a future alternative crop for farmers of New Zealand.

I shall comment on one particular person, whose name, I must admit, eludes me at the moment. He is a man whom Mr Tanczos referred to in his contribution as being from Ashburton. He came to see me, and I thought: “Here goes another guy, a bit of a crackpot involved in this industry.” He was a most impressive young man who had set up a significant business for the processing of industrial hemp into oil.

💬 Nandor Tanczos: Bruce Hill.

Bruce Hill was his name. He was a very impressive man, and I must say that that particular meeting, which occurred at my electorate office, significantly influenced my attitude to this particular crop and its future.

In closing, I repeat that the bill is now superfluous. I am surprised by the agitation of the member who promoted the bill, but as he has done a significant amount of work in the early stage, I imagine it is of some disappointment to him to note that the Government has moved forward with industrial hemp trials, making his bill completely superfluous. That is the basis on which the National Party will be voting for the legislation not to proceed further.

I am delighted to take a short turn on this bill. I want to hearken back to my experience with Mr Tanczos, the proposer of the bill, when we were on the cannabis inquiry. We heard submissions from people in Ōpōtiki, a very deprived area, who said that if we gave them a decent crop they would grow it. Those cannabis growers knew how to turn their hand to produce a horticultural crop that was against the law, and they said that if we gave them a decent crop that would give them an economic return, and that would survive in local conditions, they would grow it. They said that they needed to make money out of their toil. And here that crop is: hemp. I find it very interesting that the Opposition still carries a little bit of weighted concern about hemp, linking it with nothing but problems, instead of seeing nothing but opportunities from that crop.

I congratulate the Minister of Health on supporting the trials for the growth of hemp. I refer to an article in the Independent in June this year on the enormous opportunities from hemp. Mr Tanczos mentioned them, but the Independent stated that the fibre in the bark of hemp is as strong as fibreglass and could be used for surfboards, skateboards, and all sorts of products. In fact, Mercedes-Benz uses it for dashboards and door panels. It is much better than other plastic composites. Hemp is a product that we in New Zealand must look at in more depth, Along with the trials that we agree to, we do need to do more research. The only unfortunate thing is that hemp has to be grown to see its cannabinoid component, and it then needs to be tested to see whether it exceeds 0.3 percent. That is our problem at the moment.

But hemp is an opportunity waiting to happen. I am glad that the Minister leant her weight behind the trials. I think we will see a great economic opportunity for New Zealand in the future. I hope hemp turns round the prosperity of areas like Ōpōtiki.

I rise in the House this evening to speak on this bill sponsored by Mr Nandor Tanczos. I am sorely wounded by his remarks that I somehow inflicted agony upon him when he came before the Primary Production Committee and promoted this bill. It might surprise that member to know that I actually came down to the House this evening, after talking with my colleagues, to vote for the bill. Now I face a dilemma. I have been mortally wounded by this man and his remarks about me. I am faced with an appalling dilemma in that I want to vote for the bill—and I will give my reasons for that—but now, after being chastised severely by Mr Tanczos for my comments, I am not so sure.

Mr Carter was quite right: I did ask the officials who supported this bill whether this product had had proper biosecurity clearance. What was the answer? They looked at the roof, they looked at the floor, they sort of shuffled their feet, and they said: “Well, actually no.” If any one of us brought an organism into this country that had not gone through the proper biosecurity checks and environmental impact reports, we would be strung up by our thumbs—and rightly so. So my question was how on earth did this product get through the system. Nobody seemed to know. As a farmer who is totally aware of the importance of environmental impact reports and those sorts of issues, I do not think it unreasonable that I exercised my right to be terribly concerned about that particular aspect.

Then, after thinking long and hard about this, I asked myself: “Well, what is the THC level—the chemical level?”. When I asked the question of Mr Nandor Tanczos, he replied that the level was so low that it would have no effect. In fact—and this is the salient point—if this product crossed in the wild with marijuana plants, which are illegal, it would destroy their chemical potency. I then wondered whether that would be a bad thing and came to the conclusion that I did not think it could be. Imagine it: we should be spreading hemp seeds all over the country to destroy the illicit growing of marijuana. All over the North Island, we should be bucketing out hemp seeds, instead of 1080, and destroying the marijuana crop—once they cross-pollinate, of course, as they inevitably would. I think that would be a very, very good thing.

As I have no understanding of the marijuana plant—I have never grown the stuff—I asked Mr Tanczos earlier today to tell me what the visual difference is between industrial hemp and the illegal plant. He told me there is a significant difference in appearance. My concern was that individuals could grow the illegal plant, marijuana, in the middle of hemp fields throughout New Zealand. With the help of the Global Positioning System they would know precisely where their plants are, and the authorities would not know the difference. But Mr Tanczos assures me that those who know about these things recognise that there is a significant difference. I thought that his answer was pretty good and that there did not appear to be any major problem in that sense.

I reflected deeply on that, and I reflected deeply on the fact that probably the impact of such plants on our environment could not be worse than that of gorse, broom, or, indeed, kiwifruit. I am told that in areas where kiwifruit, for example, is grown it is rife throughout our native forests. The seed has blown in amongst our native forests, causing all sorts of problems. I am told that the hemp plant will not cause those sorts of huge problems in our communities. That seemed to me to be perfectly acceptable, and a reasonable reason to allow this measure to go through.

But I have to say that, as a farmer—as a woolgrower—there is an extremely good reason to ban hemp: good taste. Here we see before us a pure wool merino suit, and there we see Mr Tanczos in his hemp suit. I ask members which they would prefer to own. I say to the House—perhaps with my tongue firmly in my cheek—that hemp should be banned for one reason and one reason only: good taste. And for the perpetuation of the merino industry, which, as everybody knows, produces the finest-quality suits and materials in the world.

💬 Darren Hughes: Why doesn’t the member wear polyester suits?

I cannot hear what that carrot-top is saying.

💬 Hon Member: Polyester suits.

No, no—that is for Labour Party people. We over here wear the genuine McCoy—and they drive second-hand Skodas, as well. So I have to say, as an ACT party man who is very much in favour of choice, that if somebody wants to wear a hemp suit, then it is not for me to say he cannot. But I will stick with my merino suit.

I talked to my colleagues about this bill. We discussed it, and they said it was actually pretty hard to say no. But I make the observation—and I think Mr Carter made it, as well—and I make it in all seriousness, that had this bill been sponsored by Craig McNair, or perhaps by Marc Alexander, who is sitting in the House this evening, then I think it could have had a different outcome, because the issue of marijuana, hemp, illicit drugs, and so on, is, unfortunately, associated with one person in this place. There is, I think, a natural inclination not to vote for things he promotes. That is probably unfair, but I think it is the reality of the situation.

I do not know whether this might destroy Mr Nandor Tanczos’ role in the Green Party—his career and his promotion of drugs—but I say that the ACT party is going to vote for his bill. Perhaps he might like to take a short call and recant those brutal words he uttered about me earlier on this evening. However, although my speech this evening has been a little bit flippant, to say the least, this is a serious business. I know that there are a number of very responsible farmers who want to grow hemp. I certainly cannot grow it on the hills, at 5,000 feet, in Roxburgh, but that is OK; I am sure there others who can grow it. It is a little disappointing that it looks as though the House will not vote for the bill this evening. But the bill has been an exercise in democracy, and quite an interesting one for me, because I was quite determined not to vote for it, but on reflection and after chatting with others I thought we should give it a go. So I am delighted to tell the Greens, including Mr Tanczos, that we will vote in favour of his bill this evening.

It was very interesting to listen to Mr Eckhoff’s speech. It reminded me a little of watching the New Zealand basketball team compete in the Olympics. At one stage while watching that team I would get all excited because it was ahead, and the next thing it would get behind. Then I would become excited all over again when it got ahead once more. Fortunately, on a few occasions right at the end the team was able to win, but on others it unfortunately lost. I was riveted throughout the whole of Mr Eckhoff’s speech. I was thinking: “Yes, he’s going to vote against it!”, then “No, he’s going to vote for it!”, and, again, “Yes, he’s going to vote against it!”, and then “No, he’s going to vote for it!” We heard quite a bit of confusion from Mr Eckhoff in that speech, and, I believe, from the ACT party. Right up until the last minute it all hinged on whether Mr Tanczos said something good about him, after Mr Eckhoff’s rather harsh responses as far as his actions in the Primary Production Committee were concerned.

I have a degree of respect for Mr Eckhoff and I am not trying to badger him for any reason, but I was very interested in one thing that he said. He did not say that he got his information from any other source, but he did say that he had asked Mr Tanczos today whether one could tell the difference between the cannabis plant and industrial hemp, if one walked through an entire field of plants. He got his entire information from Mr Tanczos. I am not saying that Mr Tanczos is wrong, and I am not questioning what he said to Mr Eckhoff. But having said that, I suggest to Mr Eckhoff that especially on the issue of hemp and cannabis, and on related issues, he should look things up and get both sides of the story. [Interruption] Well, I disagree with Mr Eckhoff. Mr Eckhoff says that Mr Tanczos is the only authority in the House on cannabis issues. I bitterly disagree with Mr Eckhoff on that. I think a lot of people in this House have a great deal of interest in the repercussions that cannabis, hemp, and the wider drugs issue have on our nation’s young people, and I say that respectfully to people who are on both sides of the argument.

Turning from that issue, I say that back in 1997, when New Zealand First was part of the coalition Government, the issue of industrial hemp was raised. At that time a lot of questions came to the forefront regarding the whole issue. One of the issues was the fact that as the plant generations go on—as time goes on—the chemical level in hemp strengthens. That was one of the concerns that a lot of politicians had at that time. There were also a lot of other issues, such as the one I have just raised about being able to tell whether cannabis is hemp, or hemp is cannabis, or of knowing what a plant is—being able to tell the difference between plants in the field. There are lots of other issues in that regard. Also, as we saw in the Primary Production Committee and in this current Parliament, there is a concern—and this is a concern that I hold personally, and I am sure it is no surprise to Mr Tanczos or to anybody else in this House—that if we support this legislation and it does go through the House, we may be dumbing down this Parliament, and dumbing down the legislation with regard to cannabis law reform. A lot of people, especially the ones who are on the pro side of the debate, would say that no parallels whatsoever can be drawn between the two plants. They would say one is an agricultural issue, and the other is a health issue. But I would say, on behalf of New Zealand First and also especially from my own point of view, that they are run parallel with each other. They are very close issues.

💬 Simon Power: What?

An Opposition member said: “What?”. To a member of the Opposition it is very clear that cannabis and hemp are very closely related. One does not have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out.

New Zealand First has always stood firmly on its principles, and will not support any legislation that supports marijuana in any form. How can we endorse legalising hemp, when that plant is a known part of the marijuana family? That is without mentioning that the police, as I said, are busy enough without having to wander around hectares of hemp fields, testing for THC levels. [Interruption] Steve Chadwick interjects. After listening to her speech I honestly could not understand why she will be voting against this bill, because the whole time she basically supported the fact that it should pass. Then, right at the end of her speech, she said she had to vote against the bill. I honestly thought that at least she would be voting for it. Steve Chadwick’s speech was unlike listening to Mr Eckhoff’s speech, when I was thinking I was watching New Zealand’s Olympic basketball team in the middle of the night, and seeing the game go one way, and then the other. At least Steve Chadwick was not confused; she spoke in favour of the bill. But right at the end I think she showed that she was confused.

I will close by saying that New Zealand is the sheep producer of the world. We all know that exciting and innovative things are happening in the wool industry in New Zealand, and that they are continuing to happen with regard to that valuable and plentiful natural resource. We have an advantage in terms of wool. As Mr Eckhoff said—and this is one thing that I agree with him on—[Interruption] That is right; he is displaying it. New Zealand wool is a very marketable product, for which New Zealand is well renowned. New Zealand should concentrate on what it does best, and on its best natural resource.

After that garbled interlude, we now resume normal programming. I rise on behalf of United Future to address the debate and give a contribution on the Misuse of Drugs (Industrial Hemp) Amendment Bill. Unfortunately and regrettably, United Future did not have a member on the Primary Production Committee, so we have had a little catching up to do on the issues contained in the bill. Fortunately, there is not much to talk about in this bill. I was interested in Nandor Tanczos’ earlier contribution. He spent an inordinate amount of time talking about the passage of hemp seeds, as they coursed their way through the intestinal maze of birds. I had the idea that either he was a bird watcher or he was just watching to see where the birds were going to go, so that he could pick the seeds up off the road, roll them up in a newspaper, and smoke them—which is probably closer to the truth. I was also interested in the contribution from the Minister of Health, who talked about all the different products made from hemp, such as food, rope, soap, oil, and also hand cream. I think that that should be passed on to the Minister of Finance, so that he has smoother hands to relieve the public of New Zealand of their tax dollars through their pockets. Again, I was also quite interested in the testing of seeds from the plants with lower than 0.03 percent of THC, and also of those with higher levels. I am sure if there was a job available in differentiating one from the other, Nandor Tanczos would be eyeing it, after his career in Parliament is all but over. [Interruption] Will the member be joining them? No.

There is not much to talk about on this bill, because other members have made all the points that are relevant. However, the one thing I will note is that hemp is actually a very viable commodity. I think that down the track it will provide quite a lot of jobs, and earn quite a lot of income from overseas and from the goods that it can produce. Hemp does produce nice cloth, despite the objections of the ACT member Gerry Eckhoff. It does produce good rope, and all the rest of it. I think there is a lot to be seen here. Despite the garbled contribution from the New Zealand First member Craig McNair, there is a vast difference between hemp and the marijuana that is used for illicit drug purposes. I do think we should go down the track of having trials to see whether hemp can be contained and whether it can be a useful crop for the future. Hemp does have a future in this country, and I think there is an industry that we could look to pursue.

Unfortunately this bill is not a vehicle that United Future can support. There is a more viable alternative. This bill has become superfluous, so United Future will not support it. However, I think there should be a sense of gratitude for the fact that the bill has been brought forward, and for the fact that hemp will be discussed in the future as a viable crop for this country.

Apart from a pair of trousers made from the stuff, I actually have no association with hemp. I have never used it, and I did not know what it looked like. [Interruption]

💬 Hon Annette King: You need to get a decent hat.

My suit is actually wool, as well. I tell members, however, that when I go down the street with Nandor Tanczos and he is in his hemp suit and I am in my woollen suit, I am invisible. People do not look at me at all, for some reason, so obviously hemp has some advantages. If I have any passion at all, I suppose it is to make life a whole lot more enjoyable and to make sure that this planet of ours continues to support us. Hemp has a role to play in that. Peak oil will hit us before too long—that is where the oil supply starts to run down—and we will need biomass as one of the things to fill the gap. Of course, industrial hemp produces a lot of biomass very quickly, and we will need it. We are removing forests from our planet at the rate of something like the equivalent of two football fields per second. That makes the equivalent of 7,200 football fields of forests per hour. We need something to replace the fibre that comes from those forests, and industrial hemp could be one of those products.

Gerry Eckhoff talks about biosecurity tests. That is a red herring. Of course if there were no biosecurity tests there should have been, and we would be at least as concerned as Gerry Eckhoff and anybody else in this country if that happened. If there are tests to be run there are organisations to do that, and Medsafe does not seem to be the appropriate organisation to run the tests concerning hemp. If there needs to be regulations, then the regulations should obviously be administered by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. Nandor Tanczos was prepared to amend his bill to permit that. There has been talk that industrial hemp could be used to shield the growing of marijuana. Nobody has a greater vested interest in ensuring that that does not happen than the passionate people in my neck of the woods who have been involved with test crops of the hemp plant. The last thing they want to do is to imperil the future of the industry by letting marijuana be grown in the midst of it.

Are we dumbing things down? Is this measure a move towards accepting marijuana? Again, that is a nonsense; this issue has nothing to do with marijuana. We are way behind the rest of the world. There is only one other country in the world that has the same regime as us, and that is the United States of America. France, which has very strict rules on cannabis, permits the growing of industrial hemp. If we were prepared to allow people to go to the expense of testing the stuff, then I have to ask what we have found out that we did not know before that would tell us we cannot continue and allow the stuff to be grown commercially. I cannot see that we have learned anything we did not know before that should prevent us from telling those good people—who have put a lot of energy, time, and their own money into hemp because they are passionate about it—to go ahead, grow it, and we will put in place the kind of regime to make sure the community’s concerns are met.

Hemp is an enormously valuable product. It produces fibre, food, and biomass. It produces a livelihood. But many people I have spoken to are just passionate about the idea of a planet that grows the stuff as a means of meeting a whole bunch of our needs in an environmentally friendly way—in ways that many of the products that we currently use do not do. This is a short call as this is not my issue, but I congratulate Nandor Tanczos. I know that a lot of people around the country congratulate him on putting this bill up, getting the issue out there, and getting hemp planted as a test crop. We would hope in a very short time to hear this House say that it is time to enter the 21st century, to go along with the rest of the world, and to get some benefit from growing a crop that has huge value commercially and environmentally. Hemp is something that could produce jobs and livelihoods for people in this country, as it has done in other parts of the world. I visited the Wool Bloc insulation factory in Nelson some time back, and watched hemp being mixed with wool. It produces an excellent insulation, and the acoustic properties of the insulation are enhanced enormously by adding hemp. The hemp that was used was Chinese hemp. The factory has also tried the local hemp. Hemp could be used in most of the pulp mills in the country as the situation stands right now. We have pulp mills that could use it with very little adaptation—we could use it tomorrow.

I say well done to Nandor Tanczos. I am sorry the rest of the House does not see fit to support this bill. It is good legislation, and I hope that before too long members will see the error of their ways and come up with something that will do the trick.