Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3)

By way of assistance to the House, I refer those taking part in this debate to Speaker’s ruling 43/6. Briefly, it means that debate is limited to whether the Supplementary Order Paper should be referred to the Health Committee.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you for the advice that you have just given us, but the House today gave leave, and I am the person who indicated first that we would not deny leave, on the fair understanding that Michael Cullen then sought leave for the matter to be debated. Now, it seems it will not be a long debate, so to go into an argy-bargy and waste the House’s time on whether this is an appropriate method, is not on. The leave has been granted. It is a special case. Of course, there needs to be some discussion of the policy matters around that.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think that that is a fair point. I think the House will seize the opportunity to have a debate, and it would be unduly restrictive and unreasonable for the House to be kept to a narrow debate on whether the Supplementary Order Paper should go. I think some issues need to be explained and I would like the opportunity to explain them to the House. If I have that opportunity, then it is quite reasonable for Opposition members or other members of the House to be able to respond to that. So I think the progress of this matter in its substance would be helped if the debate were on a wider basis.

I do not think the debate will take any more time; I think it will actually take a shorter time. So I seek leave for the debate to be wide-ranging on the issues that this Supplementary Order Paper raises.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The House is the master of its own destiny. The member is more than entitled to seek leave. The member has sought leave. Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There appears to be none.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. One of the issues that will be of interest to National, and I invite the Minister in his comments to refer to it, is whether there should be some form of direction that if leave is granted and this Supplementary Order Paper goes to the relevant select committee, then there will be from that select committee a call for public submissions—a call that submissions will be received and submissions will be heard.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): That is a question for debate.

I move, That in its consideration of the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3), the Health Committee have the power to consider and, if it thinks fit, adopt the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 298. In moving that motion the intention is that the select committee will give the widest consideration to all the issues I will touch on in the Supplementary Order Paper, and that it be a requirement that the public be given the right to make submissions. That was the intention all along. I could not have waited, because the Clerk ruled that it was not in the purview of the bill, but I never intended that, anyway. I always intended that this Supplementary Order Paper would go to the select committee in time to have it considered by public submission, so that everyone would have a chance to have a say. These are complex issues. I understand that, and there are no simple answers here.

The purpose of the new schedule in this Supplementary Order Paper to the Misuse of Drugs Act, as recommended by the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs, is to provide for the possibility of some regulation for legal substances that are subject to abuse, but that do not warrant on available evidence, regulation under the current risk classes A, B, or C drug classification. An example of such a substance is the legal high benzylpiperazine. The regulation proposed will allow for the possibility of restrictions to be placed on such matters as legal age of purchase, retail outlets, supply, marketing, and labelling, in relation to substances in the new schedule. Such a schedule will not be confined to substances just like benzylpiperazine, but will also provide another strategy in the spectrum of measures to reduce the harm associated with volatile substance abuse, which of course includes solvent abuse.

Parliamentary colleagues will be aware of the ongoing inquest in Wellington in relation to the deaths of six people in the region due to inhalations of volatile substances. The coroner has called for information from the Government on strategies and programmes that deal with this serious problem. The Supplementary Order Paper proposes that there be the opportunity to ensure that one of the strategies the Government is pursuing with the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) before the House, is in place sooner rather later. That is why I was anxious, with cross-party support, simply to go to the select committee with the Supplementary Order Paper and then carry it from there.

I am sure there will be some temptation to joke about hairspray and nail polish, and about how ridiculous it is to try to regulate such substances. I understand that. This is a hard issue and that is why probably no Government up until now has had a go at doing anything about it. Some of us would have thought about that over time as we watched young kids blow their brains away sniffing glue and all sorts of other things, and wondered why on earth someone did not do something about that. Here is the chance to try, even though I know that it is hard.

It is true that a huge variety of substances available can be abused, and most of them have legitimate uses. That is part of the problem. It makes regulating to combat abuse a difficult task, which is probably why no previous Government has attempted it, as I said. However, this Government has decided at least to try, and the proposed new schedule allows the possibility for some regulation that is protective of some of our most vulnerable citizens, where at the moment none exists. In my view, that possibility should not be trivialised by the House. As I say, anyone who has watched with a sense of helplessness as young New Zealanders blow their brains away sniffing solvents, finds that experience anything but funny.

Not all substances that can potentially be abused will automatically fall into the new schedules. Substances will be assessed by the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs, which makes recommendations to me as Associate Minister of Health, on whether and where the substance should be placed in terms of the Misuse of Drugs Act. My position is that I am advised by that committee, and I take the advice. I do not second-guess it, I do not change it, and I recommend that to any future Associate Minister of Health who has this job. We are not expert clinicians, or at least most of us are not, and we should be prepared to take expert advice.

The Supplementary Order Paper introduces an empty schedule for restricted substances in the first instance, and sets out in broad terms the controls that may be applied to substances that are to be scheduled in the future: for example, age restrictions, labelling requirements, restrictions on advertising requirements, and so on. Once passed, the regulations will then need to be developed in order to set out the details of the suite of available controls in each of the regulatory areas available to be applied to individual restricted substances. The new schedule in the Act will remain empty until substances are subsequently assessed by the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs on the basis of criteria set out in this Supplementary Order Paper, recommended for inclusion in the schedule, and then scheduled by an Order in Council that will also identify which of the suite of regulatory controls will apply to that specific substance. The procedure is like that set out in the principal Act for classifying controlled drugs.

The Minister will consider specified matters in relation to the proposed restricted substances, relying on the advice of the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs on those matters. If that committee considers that a substance should be restricted, it must also give advice to the Minister on the appropriate restrictions and requirements to apply to that substance.

The range of restrictions and requirements available is prescribed in regulations made by Order in Council. The affirmative resolution process of Order in Council applying to the classification and reclassification of controlled drugs will also apply to the scheduling of restricted substances. That means that the Health Committee will get to scrutinise each Order in Council, and the House will be able to debate them. I reiterate that.

Should the House agree to that motion I intend to draw two matters to the special attention of the Health Committee. The first is in relation to the provisions that relate to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. As drafted, the Supplementary Order Paper provides for targeted overriding of the rights of freedom of expression—that is, advertising and labelling restrictions, and the right to be free from discrimination in terms of age restriction. In all legislation of any substance we often find that to be so. However, the select committee can grapple with that, as Governments have to grapple with it, and advise the House accordingly.

I have advised both health officials and justice officials who have varying and differing views on these matters to be prepared to appear before the select committee, in order to give their evidence to the committee so that they can be as informed as the Government. I am inviting the select committee and the public to engage in a discussion of the potential conflicts this kind of attempt to protect the vulnerable always confronts us with—a clash of rights that we as legislators have to resolve in the best and most common-sense way we can.

The other matter for special consideration relates to the fact that persons convicted of an offence under provisions introduced by this Supplementary Order Paper would have a criminal record for an offence under the Misuse of Drugs Act. It is acknowledged that drug offences are viewed by countries such as the United States as sufficiently serious to inhibit those offenders’ access to the country. Concern has been raised that that may be a disproportionate penalty for the types of offences anticipated by the Supplementary Order Paper. I believe that the select committee, after hearing submissions and advice, will be in a good position to make a recommendation to the House on that matter. I understand the seriousness of those issues but I have conflicting advice as to whether that is a good or bad idea, and I would like the select committee to have the same advice presented to it. The Minister of Justice and I have agreed that both health and justice officials will be made available to the committee to advise on those matters.

Just as all parliamentary parties supported the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) going to the select committee, I am hopeful that there will be cross-party support for this proposal as well, in which we are in effect asking the Health Committee to genuinely advise and inform the House. When I wrote to each party’s spokesperson on health and then took the matter to the Business Committee, I was hopeful that we would get cross-party support, but I have no problem with the fact that the House is debating this matter. It will, through the select committee and public hearing processes, be debated again. Then it will come back to the House, the select committee will advise us, and we will have further debate.

These, as I know, are hard issues, but I think we would be shirking our responsibilities if we did not try in some way, shape, or form to tackle the problems and to do the best we possibly can. Then, I think, we can look ourselves in the mirror when we see some of these problems around, and say that at least we tried.

We just heard the Minister in charge of this bill say he is unsure whether this Supplementary Order Paper is a good idea or a bad idea, and that it will be up to the select committee to sort it out. There is an old saying: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Nobody wants to see our young people abusing drugs. That is the bottom line, and I totally agree with the Minister on that point.

But the fact is that in March 2004 the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs recommended that this Supplementary Order Paper be devised. The Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) was introduced on 8 September 2004, but leave was sought today at the Business Committee to add a Supplementary Order Paper that is outside the scope of the bill, and to refer it straight to the select committee with no debate in the House. We did not want to support that. We wanted this debate in the House.

We will support this motion today and this Supplementary Order Paper to be debated by the Health Committee as part of the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3), but I do question the process this is going through. These are serious issues. They are not easily dealt with, either by justice or health staff. They are complex issues that need to have full scrutiny rather than this process.

Today also happens to be members’ day. I have had a bill about mental health in the ballot, waiting to be drawn for the last 4 years, which I am sure the Hon Jim Anderton would like to see progress. The bill is desperately needed. It is an amendment to the Mental Health Act. Yet here we are today using members’ time on a members’ day when we have the only chance, especially for those in Opposition, to be able to do something substantial to help the health of this country. So I have to say that having this debate today is an imposition on the members on this side of the House—although of course we do want to see that all we can do is being done to help our children stay free from a life of drugs and crime.

We also heard from the Minister about how the new schedule would actually work, and I have some questions. These are questions that the Health Committee will have to ask, because the schedule, which is blank at the moment, will be able to address age restrictions, advertising restrictions, and labelling. One has to ask—and I do not think the Minister can answer this question—whether the age limit, labelling, and advertising for alcohol could be changed under this process. The way I read it, it looks as if it could be added to and devised that way.

The expeditious scheduling of drugs was a system devised by the Hon Wyatt Creech and, when it was discussed by the select committee, we approved that process of rapid scheduling of drugs for substances like Ecstasy and Fantasy—drugs that have a high classification, can be very addictive, and can also cause major harm and death to individuals. The use of the process for lesser substances has to be questioned to some degree. We have to have a good look during the select committee process at whether that is what should happen.

The Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs did not classify drugs such as benzylpiperazine—BZP as it is generally known, which gives a legal high—or solvents as drugs needing to be in class A, B, or C, which is the normal classification of drugs and which means a criminal offence is committed by anyone using them. We have heard from the Minister that anyone who breaks the rules in the schedule regarding sale, age, advertising, or labelling will be open to a criminal conviction, so these are serious issues.

Other substances used in volatile substance abuse are solvents, which comprise one of the other areas the Minister wants examined. How do we stop people from sniffing petrol or nail polish glue? How do we restrict the age for somebody to be able to buy those products? I am certainly shocked by the deaths of those six young people in Wellington recently, and I think it is a tragedy for this country that we have such a high suicide rate, that so many of our children are involved in taking drugs, and that we have a P epidemic. There is something systemically wrong with the care of our children that we have so many in those categories.

However, using this particular process to schedule these drugs is something the select committee will have to call for submissions on and have a very clear look at. We must have the right process. We know that the Minister actually brought in the sherry tax under urgency in the middle of the night. The intention was to try to stop alcopops being used by the under-18s, but that did not happen because the process was not correct. That tax ended up being a sherry tax instead of a tax on what it was targeted at. That is what happens. It was a good intention, but the process was a mess and it did not hit the target.

We have to be sure that we actually get it right, and this is not the correct way to do it. This Supplementary Order Paper should have been part of the original bill. We could not support it just going straight to the select committee without any debate, but we are having debate tonight.

The legal highs we have been hearing about, such as those from benzylpiperazine, have been discussed with me by quite a few constituents. Mums and dads come and see me, very concerned about these drugs being able to be sold to children because, whatever their effect, the fact is that their use is conditioning our young people to think that they cannot go to a party and have a good time without popping a pill, and that they cannot have a high that is natural. That is not correct and that is not the situation we should have. The fact is that conditioning people to pop a pill to have a high is obviously going to lead to children taking other drugs, stronger drugs, to get that high. They condition themselves to think: “I can’t dance all night unless I take this pill.”, and that makes them very, very exposed to the scum who prey on the young just to make money. We see the deaths and destruction of these young people’s lives. We see unwanted pregnancies and we see death.

So National will support this process tonight, although I am very sorry that it has occurred in the way it has. I do not think it is a good process but, because we have so much concern about drugs, we will support the referral of this Supplementary Order Paper to the select committee.

On behalf of New Zealand First I rise to speak in support of Mr Anderton’s Supplementary Order Paper being referred to the Health Committee for consideration along with the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3). We are very aware that the Supplementary Order Paper falls outside the scope of this bill, but it perhaps should have been part of the original bill. New Zealand First actually prefers that the Health Committee consider the Supplementary Order Paper at this time and hear public submissions, rather than, as can happen, tabling the Supplementary Order Paper during the Committee stage, which means that there is no public consultation, and we do want some public consultation on this particular Supplementary Order Paper.

We are very aware, too, that solvent abuse is a very serious issue in our community that does need to be addressed. There does need to be some regulation for some of the legal substances that are currently being abused by our young people. We believe, too, that restrictions need to be placed on matters like the age of purchasers, the retailing, the supply, the marketing, and the labelling of those drugs.

The advertisements we have seen in books, and that I have been sent, portray a very sophisticated look for some of the party drugs available from legal outlets. New Zealand First has stated many times that the Government needs to take urgent action to tackle substance abuse and solvent abuse, and any action that we can take as politicians to assist in this area needs to be taken in a timely manner. No one wants to see our young people destroying themselves using drugs and abusing solvents. We are only too aware that this whole area of substance abuse, including solvent abuse, is thriving and many people, including criminals, are profiting from the misery of others. Unfortunately, these are always young people. It is a recipe for disaster because we are very aware that many young lives are ruined as a result of substance abuse.

It is a shame that the effect of these drugs on our young people has never been clearer, but too often we as politicians seem to have given up the fight and want to leave it to others. Perhaps this Supplementary Order Paper will assist in this fight. I remember last year that the police commissioner called for more police resources, to get tough on criminals who manufacture and sell methamphetamine. The police daily see the results of young New Zealanders involved in youth crime and the drug scene.

We believe that substance and solvent abuse is a part of the very high statistics that we see in New Zealand, and we do need some very concrete strategies to deal with this problem. I know that my colleague Craig McNair has a very great passion about this particular area, and has stated that many, many times. It is indeed really sad to see children and young people inhaling a whole variety of substances from plastic bags and containers, as they sit around the cities and the towns of New Zealand. It is not something we want to see for our youth.

We always read about the deaths that are occurring, due to the inhalation of these volatile substances that are legally on sale, and that makes it a very big problem for our police. Strategies and programmes need to be put in place urgently to deal with this problem, and hopefully this Supplementary Order Paper will assist. New Zealand First believes that this Supplementary Order Paper is an opportunity to ensure that strategies to deal with the misuse of substances, which are associated with the many, many examples of solvent and drug abuse, are in place sooner, rather than later. How many more lives must be lost before politicians admit that the system we have currently in place is failing the youth of our country?

The community treatment facilities right throughout New Zealand are stretched to the limit, and the sooner we can pass additional legislation to meet the needs of the environment of today, the better. New Zealand First supports this Supplementary Order Paper being included as part of the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) and we will look forward to working through it.

First, I would like to commend the Hon Jim Anderton for introducing this Supplementary Order Paper, and I would also like to thank him for the clarification that there will be an opportunity for the public to make submissions on it during the select committee process. The Misuse of Drugs Act has needed an overhaul for many years—in fact, the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs made it clear to the Health Committee during the examination of Fantasy that the framework does need an overhaul. That point has also been made by the Green Party many times in the past, and we have put forward specific proposals to that effect. I am pleased to see that the Minister has the ability to recognise a good idea and pick it up and go with it, and introduce something into the House.

This issue came to a head during the expert advisory committee’s examination of benzylpiperazines and other piperazines. I remember the call by Bill English, Heather Roy, Peter Dunne, and others to ban those substances, even though they had no evidence that they caused any particular harm to people. The call was really based on sheer ignorance and prejudice. Fortunately, New Zealand has moved to an evidence-based decision-making procedure in respect of the scheduling of drugs, and that is good, despite the antipathy of some members of Parliament to fact and evidence, as is often displayed by United Future on these issues.

The expert advisory committee recommended that these products should not be banned, and in fact that is something the Green Party had been saying for some time. While the industry had adopted a voluntary code of practice that was more effective and responsible in developing self-regulation than we have seen from the alcohol industry in this country, the Green Party has always said that those voluntary self-regulations were not enough, that they needed to be enforceable. The Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs agreed. It recommended that a new schedule be added to the Misuse of Drugs Act, and this Supplementary Order Paper is the result.

It is also the opportunity for us to try to grapple with issues around huffing and solvent abuse, and that is something this House first addressed in the 1980s and was never able to come to grips with. It is good we are starting to address that issue. But of course we have to ask why kids are huffing in the first place. Maybe it has something to do with a lack of much else to do in many parts of the country that has left kids with few recreational alternatives. While we need to look at how we regulate, we also need to look at the other side, at providing positive alternative activities for young people to take part in.

We support this Supplementary Order Paper. I would like to go through it and look at some of the details, because we do have concerns about some specifics, as well as draw attention to some of the positive reforms that are in it. The first, contained in proposed clause 32, is new section 46, which deals with the functions of the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs. These functions have been expanded in regard to the evaluation of drugs.

The committee will now also look at things like considering the practical consequences of any proposed restriction or requirement, and that is good—the committee will look at what the impact will be in reality—and increasing public awareness of the committee’s work in relation to substances by, for instance, the timely release of reports, papers, and recommendations. It is about time. I have been trying for about a year to get minutes of meetings of the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs. They are not on its website, despite a statutory requirement to have them published. Therefore, it is good to see reaffirmed that we are to see some of its papers and minutes, and understand what the committee is doing. The committee does do a good job, but let us see the evidence of it by making those papers available.

Section 47 is the process for making amendments to schedules. It is a little confused. I assume that where it mentions “kind of age restriction”, for example, in paragraph (c), that refers to the regulatory powers put in place by section 65 and regulations under that section will specify what those kinds of powers are. But the wording in the Supplementary Order Paper about the relationship between those sections is a bit unclear and I think it could be improved by the select committee.

Section 49 refers to matters to which a Minister must have regard before recommending an Order in Council. These are very good criteria. They include things like the positive or negative impact that any restriction will have on a lawful activity; practicalities of imposing restrictions, and the ability to enforce those restrictions; risk of increasing the abuse of the substance, due to increased awareness; and risk of encouraging people to use more dangerous substances in its place. Those are all excellent criteria. The only point I would make is that the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs should also be looking at those criteria. Under this proposal the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs will look at the scientific evidence, but it is only the Minister who will look at these further matters.

The Minister has said that he does not like to resile from the recommendations of the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs, and that is as it should be, but the committee should be empowered to look at all the relevant matters, such as these ones, which at the moment it is not allowed to, according to the legislation that set it up. I would like to see these criteria expanded so that the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs also examines them when it makes its recommendations. Those criteria should apply to all scheduling decisions, not just under this specific schedule.

I turn to other matters. The enforcement sections, sections 59 and 60, have some things of concern. The Supplementary Order Paper outlines that an enforcement officer or the police can enter premises, except accommodation or dwelling houses, to inspect, take photos or videos, copy documents relating to restricted substances, and other things, if they believe there are restricted substances on the premises. This means that a police officer can wander down to the local hardware store and make copies of all its tax records, because hardware stores sell glue and spray cans. That is what the law says as it stands at the moment. It is not because they suspect the proprietors of a hardware store have committed an offence, but simply because they have those substances on the premises or they believe they have those substances on the premises. That needs to be tightened up.

Section 60 is even worse. A police officer can seize all supplies of a restricted substance like glue or spray cans, plus any documents, records, or anything that relates to them, which could include accounts, computers, and tax records, because the officer has reason to believe an offence has been committed. It does not have to be proved. The officer just has to have reason to believe that an offence has been committed. The police can then take up to a year before deciding whether to lay a charge. It is not even clear that they have to lay a charge or, if a person is found not guilty, that they have to return those things that they have seized. So I think there are real issues around the enforcement procedures.

The law does have to be enforceable. In fact, I support tougher penalties than a $500 fine, but those powers need to be restrained. The seizure of stuff should require a warrant. It should be restricted only to what is required for evidence to lay a charge, or perhaps to stop further breaches of the law—that would be acceptable—but at the moment there are no constraints around what they can seize, except that it relates to a restricted substance. There should be more accountability than simply a junior constable deciding there is reasonable cause to believe that an offence has been committed. That is entirely unacceptable, and I am surprised that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet did not pick up those issues.

The last thing I will say in relation to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is that section 65(2) states: “Regulations made under subsection (1) may limit the rights contained in the following sections of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act”—which is section 14, in relation to freedom of expression; and section 19, so far as it relates to discrimination on the grounds of age—“in any way”. The rights in those sections of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act can be limited “in any way specified in the regulations”. Again, I think that that is an extremely broad exception that goes way beyond what is required in the Supplementary Order Paper. It seems to me that any restriction should be limited to the purposes of the schedule only, otherwise it is a very broad power.

This House is often in the habit of paying little regard to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I think that that is something we do at our peril and that we need to be much more careful about creating powers for regulations that breach the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act without any constraints on those powers.

So there are a number of specific details in this Supplementary Order Paper that need to be worked through. But they are detailed issues that the select committee can work through, and I am sure we can come to a resolution of them. But, most of all, I would like to commend the Minister. I think it is a courageous move to introduce this Supplementary Order Paper. I thank him for doing that and I look forward to the select committee process and participating in that debate.

I would like to put on record the fact that the ACT party opposed this measure going straight from the Minister’s office to the select committee. As a party, we believe in the parliamentary process. We believe that we should be having a debate in the House, like we are now, which is the normal first reading of any bill. That is why we opposed the leave sought by the Minister for this matter to go straight to the select committee, but why we did not oppose the leave today for this debate in the House.

The only problem—and I would like to draw it to the attention of the House—is that the Leader of the House, Dr Cullen, has treated Parliament with great disrespect today because this is a matter for the Government to be dealing with in the Government’s time. Every 2 weeks, when the House is sitting, Parliament has a members’ day. It is an opportunity for members who do not normally get a chance to have legislation on the Order Paper, to put their bills forward and for Parliament to debate them. The fact that the Leader of the House has chosen to ram through Government business on members’ day is, I think, treating the members of this Parliament with a great deal of disrespect.

I also believe that it is a slap in the face for the Hon Jim Anderton. He obviously went to Michael Cullen and said: “Put this on the Order Paper.” Michael Cullen said: “No, we don’t have time for it.”, and poor old Mr Anderton has had to try to get the leave of Parliament to get it put on the Order Paper so that the House can debate what is a very important issue. So I do feel sorry for the Hon Jim Anderton. He has been slapped in the face by his Labour colleagues and he is now forced to steal members’ time for this debate.

The ACT party is happy for this bill to go to a select committee and we will reserve our decision on whether to support the bill until after the select committee has had a chance to do its work. We have serious concerns about the ability of the Government to regulate substances through an Order in Council. We would prefer that such regulation on substances should come through an open parliamentary debate and a proper select committee process, so that the whole country has a chance, first, to understand what is going on; and, second, if they have some real concerns, to have a say on the matter and share their concerns and views with the members of Parliament who have to make a decision on whether to go ahead and regulate.

The issues raised by the Minister relate back to the tragic death of six young people due to solvent abuse, to the inhalation of substances. The coroner has rightly called on the Government to provide information on strategies and progress to deal with what is a very serious problem. As other speakers have said, it is a very serious issue when young people end up losing their lives because of such actions. But I say to the House that putting warnings on fly spray cans is not the answer; that lifting the age by which young people can buy hairspray is not the answer, either. Restricting the sale of nail polish and other such products is not the answer that New Zealanders should be looking to the Government and Parliament for.

The problem we have here, and the problem that the select committee will have to wrestle with, is whether Parliament restricts the rights of the majority because the minority choose to use substances—that are legitimately used by most of the population—in a way that causes damage. It would be just the same as Parliament or a Government deciding in its wisdom that we should ban all knives because every so often somebody goes out and uses a knife to harm somebody or to harm himself or herself. Clearly that is unreasonable and a Parliament or a Government would not do that. But the point is that here we could be facing a situation under the Labour Government—which likes regulating sectors, products, systems, and anything that moves, and does not trust people to be responsible—whereby we end up regulating hairspray, fly spray, and all the rest of it. I say that that is not the answer. The answer is to go to the problem itself, which is some young people who are behaving in a manner that is not normal, and to find out why. These are young people who, if they end up sniffing solvents to the point that they die, have obviously been behaving in this way for some time. The Government should be asking itself why these young people fell through the safety nets that are in place.

If we look at New Zealand, there is a multitude of different agencies out there keeping a watch over young people and children. The young people who died would invariably have been showing the symptoms from the time they were toddlers. Many members of Parliament went this morning to the Littlies Lobby breakfast with Plunket and they heard a speaker who reminded us of the fact that of those young people who have serious problems later in life—who may become serious criminal offenders—one can mostly see those patterns of behaviour by the time they are 3 years old.

By the time they are 6, 10, or 15 years old, those behaviours have become permanent, unless somebody has done something. We have the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, schools, social workers and police officers in schools, doctors, counsellors, youth services, and judges—we have so many people at every step of the way whose role is to pick up young people who are on the wrong path to self-destruction and to help them get on a good path, yet when a young person ends up sniffing hair spray or fly spray and dying, all those services have failed. The Government should be tracking back the life path of those young people about whom the coroner has talked and raised issues about, and seeing where its services have failed. Then it should be looking to put in place some systems that will ensure it picks up another young person who is on that same path.

I remind the Government that programmes are in place in New Zealand and around the world that successfully pick up children almost before they are born. One can see the families where kids will be at risk, and one can work with those families proactively by using mentors and other programmes and facilities that have been shown to be very successful. That is where the Government’s effort should be going.

Not long ago, we in Parliament debated whether to give methamphetamine class A drug status. This Government has failed to get on top of that drug problem. The National Drug Intelligence Bureau is telling the Government that we have a methamphetamine crisis in this country. If the system that the Hon Jim Anderton is trying to bring in today to restrict those substances and make it tougher for people to get them, and all the rest of it, was working, then we should no longer be seeing a methamphetamine problem in New Zealand. Instead, in my home town there have been 14 armed robberies this year, when previously there have been none. The people who know about the individual cases say that they have been committed because of methamphetamine. The Government has failed to get on top of that problem. I worry that this is not the right system to deal with the other issues I have raised today.

I rise on behalf of United Future to talk on the Supplementary Order Paper that the Hon Jim Anderton wants referred to the Health Committee, as part of the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) that is already before that committee. I congratulate Mr Anderton. I believe that when we look at his heart on this matter, we see that he has taken an interest in an extremely serious situation that is facing young people in New Zealand at present—legal high pills and other substances that are being used to the extreme health detriment of young people. Mr Anderton wants something done. He said that this is a very difficult situation to legislate for, but that we must do something. Sitting back and saying that it is too hard is not what we have been voted in to say.

However, United Future has some concerns that I need to outline. We will support this bill going to the select committee, because we think the discussion needs to be had. We think that the Supplementary Order Paper provided by Mr Anderton will provide good fodder for deliberations by the select committee. Certainly, it will provide a great discussion document for submitters. In my discussions with the Hon Jim Anderton, I have ascertained that he is not precious about his suggestion. If the select committee, as a result of listening to submitters, can improve on what he is suggesting, or can find a better way, he is more than happy for the Supplementary Order Paper to be sideswiped in favour of a better option.

My concern is whether what is being proposed is a natural fit into our current misuse of drugs legislation, or whether it would fit better into a separate Act—I am not sure whether one exists or whether we would need to create another one. We are really looking at regulating a wide range of products that have risks associated with them when they are used inappropriately. They are products that have a legitimate use, in many cases, but when used inappropriately, have high risks. As one of the National members mentioned a while ago, there is such a variety of products—from nail polish through to LPG in canisters by the garden barbeque—that could come under this legislation that it could start to look like a nonsense in one sense. However, I accept very, very strongly what the Hon Jim Anderton said about even those seemingly insipid products that can be inhaled with minor effects starting young people down a very serious path, and that we need to be looking seriously at that.

I agree with Muriel Newman that we need to be asking some of the bigger questions. We need to be looking at earlier interventions. It is interesting that the expert advisory committee said that more information needed to be assembled on a lot of the substances that we are looking at regulating. It certainly recommended that it was wrong to market benzylpiperazine as a dietary supplement—that it did not fit into that category and that it was a very dangerous label to have on it. There was certainly strong evidence that some of those substances create adverse reactions on their own. The other problem—and this is another reason why I do not think this particular Supplementary Order Paper will end up fitting well into the misuse of drugs legislation—is that some of those products are not, on their own, a high risk, but when one combines them with alcohol, prescription drugs, and other substances, then one has a lethal cocktail, and some very, very dangerous outcomes.

We need to do something. I think it is right and proper that, rather than putting it in the too-hard basket, we make a move in that direction. I think it is also important to understand what is happening in other jurisdictions overseas right now. In Australia some states have labelled some of those products as illegal—they have been put into a fairly strict category. In the United States a temporary ban has been put on some of those herbal highs while their effects are studied. In New Zealand the police, for instance, say that they are closely monitoring the situation so that they are able to make recommendations. On some of those things, it is almost as if the jury is out. I think we need to be very mindful of that as we proceed with this. Let us have the discussion. Let us call for the submissions. Let us take the very generous offer of the Hon Jim Anderton to make the best of what he has suggested, and, if necessary, to change it completely to get the best outcome. United Future is certainly supportive of that. Our other concern is that creating a category D in the misuse of drugs legislation would facilitate the demotion of drugs currently classified as class C. We think that would be very detrimental to the young people of this nation.

It is good to take part in a debate where there is almost unanimity in the House in relation to this most important issue that faces our nation: the abuse of drugs—and also of alcohol, which has come into the debate. I was a bit bemused at the backhanded support from the National Party, which will begrudgingly vote for the measure. It did, of course, recognise the public concern about the issue. I also commend the speech made by Nandor Tanczos, because it is important when we take these measures to draw attention to the areas that the Health Committee will have to pay close attention to, particularly the area of procedural unfairness. When new powers are produced for the right reasons—in this case, to tackle the issue of the misuse of drugs—we also have to look at whether unfairness will be introduced through powers that the police or other agencies may have that may be abused. It was an important point to make, and I commend the member for making it.

I am also concerned that the National Party’s spokesperson on health, Lynda Scott, may be wandering around the building under a misapprehension. She clearly showed that from the comments she made, which were fairly ignorant, on the reasons for the excise tax introduced last year. It is absolute nonsense to say that alcopops were targeted. They were not; they have a small alcohol content. The excise charge was introduced to close the tax loophole that provided a financial incentive for young people to consume high alcoholic content beverages, inappropriately termed “light spirits”. Survey data had shown that the proportion of young women aged 14 to 17 who drank “four drinks or more in one sitting at least once a week”, increased from 15 percent in 1998 to 28 percent in 2001. That survey data is available from the Associate Minister of Health’s office.

In addition to an increase in heavy drinking by young women, survey data also shows there has been an increase in the proportion of young men who have been drinking excessively. We know that, which is why we talk about teenage binge-drinking and abuse of alcohol among young people. Before the Government took action to start to curb that problem, it considered not only the advice of local health and youth professionals but also the objective evidence from attempts overseas to address that sort of problem. That is what the National Party should consider. This issue is not for political partisan use. People can use it like that, but it does not serve our population well. Members should actually consider listening to health professionals, rather than trying cheap attacks, suggesting this is an exercise for raising revenue. Otherwise, their so-called concerns for our young people do not sound very real. I am sure that members of Parliament are concerned about harm to our youth population, but to put up an argument suggesting that the actions taken by the Minister and Government on the excise tax were simply to raise revenue, suggests there is no serious proposition underneath that argument—that is, how do we tackle abuse in terms of the consumption of alcohol by our young people?

The evidence has been that increasing the price of liquor is a key way of influencing the amount of alcohol consumed by young people. Until Parliament increased the teen alcohol tax, some light spirits in the 14 to 23 percent alcohol by volume range—most of which have 23 percent alcohol by volume—sold for under $8 for a 1,125 millilitre bottle. Eight dollars is easily within the purchasing range of many young people. That means that before the tax change those light spirits were not priced by their actual alcoholic content but by an arbitrarily low rate that allowed consumers, many of them young, to get hold of beverages with as much as 23 percent alcohol by volume at ridiculously low prices. That was the mischief that was attacked by the measure brought in by the Associate Minister of Health, the Hon Jim Anderton.

The law change increased the excise duty that the Government charges on beverages that contain more than 14 percent but not more than 23 percent of alcohol by volume, to reflect their real alcoholic content, which, as we all know, has now pushed the retail price higher. The Business Round Table condemned the excise penalty on youth alcohol abuse as bad tax policy, and said that it favours the abolition of excise taxes altogether on the grounds that they are regressive. Three Opposition parties—ACT, New Zealand First, and National—also strongly opposed the tax rise, and fought the measure all the way. But what they were opposing was a rise in the retail price of light spirit products that mainly fall into the category that professionals say is the biggest cause of grief for young people.

Thanks to the law change, the price difference between so-called alcopops, which typically have a 5 percent alcohol content, and light spirits has widened considerably to reflect the actual alcohol content of those beverages of choice for young New Zealanders. The result for vulnerable young people turning to much lower content liquor instead of the high-alcohol light spirits has already been demonstrated. What was done here was to get at a mischief that was particularly harming our young people. I believe that that is what parties should concentrate on, rather than trying to have cheap politics and suggesting that there was a taxation revenue motive behind it.

I do not want to take up the time of the House for the full 10 minutes allocated, but I do wish to raise two matters. It is probably our good fortune that the Deputy Leader of the House is present, because at the outset I wish to raise a procedural matter. A clear and unequivocal undertaking has been given by the Hon Jim Anderton that it will be the case that the Health Committee will call for public submissions on the merit of this Supplementary Order Paper. But I do not think he can stipulate that requirement and have it enforced on the committee in the absence of a direction from the House. So I raise that issue, because it seems to me that such a direction would have to be given to make it clear that those submissions will be called for. I am assuming that the committee has the numbers on the Government side to produce that outcome. So that was the first issue.

The second issue is to follow on from the comments made by Dr Lynda Scott—who was talking about certain health aspects relating to the Supplementary Order Paper—and talk about certain legal aspects. For those who might be listening to these issues on the radio, somewhat perplexedly, the point at issue here is a very simple one: we are proposing to create a class of substances called restricted substances, which are of harm to people, and to have an expeditious classification process so that those harmful substances will be added as restricted substances to the Misuse of Drugs Act. The legal issue relates to the process—and members of the Health Committee will be very much aware of this—known as the affirmative resolution procedure, which is the parliamentary procedure that is proposed to do that process of adding to the schedules in the legislation. It turns out that it was the Misuse of Drugs Act that provided the starting point for this novel—and it is novel—affirmative procedure process to arise. It was implemented first by an amendment in 2000 to the Misuse of Drugs Act.

The executive has made a number of attempts to proliferate the use of the procedure, and the Regulations Review Committee has in very general terms set its heart against that course. So in the result, when it was proposed that the process be available for increasing the number of judges in the District Courts and High Courts, and the Regulations Review Committee said that it thought that that was a bad idea, the relevant committee was good enough to accept that position. When there was a proposal to extend provisions relating to cervical screening programmes under the health screening legislation, it was similarly the case that the affirmative resolution procedure was not, in the result, finally pursued. It is said that the justification for the process is to do with expeditious scheduling, but I draw to the attention of members of the House that the classification of pseudoephedrine by the affirmative resolution procedure was incredibly slow. When people assert in a lofty way that scheduling can occur quickly, they just need to look at that example.

Finally, the affirmative resolution procedure has been the subject of an interim report by the Regulations Review Committee, which has produced a Government response that the procedure should not proliferate. I express the hope, when the Health Committee comes to look critically at the merit of this Supplementary Order Paper, that consideration be paid to that issue. I also note that the Regulations Review Committee and, I believe, the Government think that the relevant provisions of the Standing Orders relating to the affirmative resolution procedure, need amendment. It may very well be that when the bill is reported back with this Supplementary Order Paper, there will be an amendment to reflect a better process that can later be picked up in a revision of the Standing Orders.

I will not take up the time of this House too much, in the interests of speeding this debate along, particularly as it is members’ day. One of the things I am interested in focusing on is that a lot of the debate that has taken place so far is a little bit premature and would be better addressed down the track. The core question right here is whether this Supplementary Order Paper should go to the Health Committee. I think there is fairly good support for that at the moment, because there are a lot of issues that need to be dealt with.

The real issue is how we decide the best way to regulate and develop a range of policies towards party drugs, as well as aerosol sprays and all the rest of that stuff. We also need to consider solvent-abuse deaths, and so on, which have been faced already by the Wellington Coroner. The herbal highs are another segment altogether. They are currently legal and, to some degree, have legitimate purposes. But it is the abuse of these things that is at the core of a lot of the trouble we have. In March this year, for example, five young people were admitted to Dunedin Hospital with anxiety symptoms after taking such pills. The thing is we have to deal with the substances sensibly, and also with the inhalants.

Muriel Newman commented that we should not accept the proposed regulation, which would allow restrictions to be placed on such matters as legal age to purchase, retail supply and marketing, labelling, and so on. She is quite right in that we do not want to get into the absurd situation of having to label hairspray as a product that could kill. Every knife and fork in the kitchen cupboard could kill. Everything could kill. We do not want to go down that track. But at the same time we need to have a sensible debate about some of the things that are actually killing, hurting, and harming our kids. Obviously, the message is not getting out, and we have to deal with that. If Mr Anderton’s Supplementary Order Paper is a way to do so, then I think we ought to be comfortable with supporting it and having a legitimate debate when it gets to the Health Committee.

The regulations proposed will allow restrictions to be placed on the legal age to purchase, retail supply and marketing, and so on, as I mentioned. They will also set out regulation-making powers, with offences such as the offence to sell a restricted substance in contravention of an age restriction, the offence to supply a restricted substance to a person in contravention of an age restriction, and the offence to sell in contravention of the labelling restriction or labelling requirement. I do not want to see our country paralysed by warning labels on every damn thing we need to make our lives bearable. Hell, one can die from eating too much candy or chocolate! Should we put warnings on those things as well? I do not think so.

The point is that those kinds of discussions need to take place in the appropriate arena, which happens to be the Health Committee. United Future believes that regulation should be commensurate with the harm a drug does. We would like to see a policy that is led by the police, rather than an artificial device such as class A, class B, and class C drugs. One of the problems in going down that road is that methamphetamines, for example, took 7 years to be reclassified. I would much rather see the police leading the debate. There are a lot of issues that need to be dealt with. The Health Committee is the appropriate place for that, and United Future will be supporting that debate occurring.

I will make a quick call on this misuse of drugs bill. I think it has been very valuable to have this debate today. It may be a reflection of the frustration that every party has felt about the process of getting both the bill and the subsequent Supplementary Order Paper before the House, and what comes first. I was on the Health Committee when we considered the Misuse of Drugs Bill, which brought in the affirmative resolution procedure. I remind the House that it was the Hon Wyatt Creech who had great concerns, in relation to that bill, about our needing a smarter and more responsive approach to scheduling drugs, because the market moves so quickly. It is a procedure that we are all slightly nervous about but, as the chair of the select committee, I can assure the House and those listening that we will call for submissions, and we will have a very robust process of hearing them and considering the advice of the expert advisory committee. The membership of that committee was altered by the original Misuse of Drugs Bill, and I think that was a very good action of the Health Committee at the time. We knew that it had to be wider—that we needed customs experts, police, and consumer advisers on the expert advisory committee. I can assure the House that this matter will be dealt with robustly through due process.

I also am delighted that we have the opportunity to discuss in Parliament today the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3) and the Supplementary Order Paper from Minister Jim Anderton. Like others, I thank him for his interest in, and dedication to, this cause, which is very important to the life of our nation. I have a personal vision for New Zealand, and I guess it is also the vision of United Future. We would like to see this country free of cannabis, free of methamphetamines, and free of gangs. My colleague Marc Alexander has some great policies that we think could make that an achievable goal for our nation.

The main point I want briefly to make in this debate is that we should be very careful in the way we talk to the wider community about drugs. We should ensure that what we say is always based on the best available science. I say that because although anything Nandor Tanczos says in this House about drugs has no credibility whatsoever with the wider New Zealand community—because most people are outraged that he is in Parliament despite being a self-confessed user of cannabis—it is very important that when people like Jim Anderton and others speak on this issue they are science driven. I hope, therefore, that the select committee will be very science driven in considering the Supplementary Order Paper.

Some years ago I had the privilege of having some information conveyed to me by an eminent professor of neurology who was visiting this country. He gave a very simple illustration of the difference between alcohol on the one hand and cannabis on the other. His claim was—and others may want to check it out from a scientific point of view—that the human body can process 1 ounce of alcohol per hour. So if one consumes 8 ounces of alcohol, the human body will take 8 hours to process it. Someone who has had 10 ounces of alcohol and 8 hours’ sleep will have a 2-hour hangover—as we all know—at the end, because the body needs more time to process the drug. On the other hand, the professor explained, a single joint of cannabis contains an ingredient that will go into the actual structure of the cells that connect with a very vital part of the brain, and will disrupt the operation of that part of the brain for as long as 5 or 6 months. I think it is most unhelpful when people in this House sometimes say that the major drug problem in New Zealand is alcohol. That may be true in one sense but it is also extremely misleading.

It is misleading at a very practical level, as every secondary school principal in this country understands. I have spoken to many of them—by the way, I do not think there is one who supports the legalisation of cannabis. They tell me that they can pretty quickly pick when a kid, in a class of 14 or 15, starts to take cannabis. They can tell because that child’s attitude to study will begin to change almost immediately. They will start to see a fall-off in the child’s work rate, particularly in doing homework. They will also see a serious diminishment in the child’s ambition to get ahead, study, and be successful in life. That is completely different from the effect of alcohol. A schoolteacher cannot tell on Monday morning whether a kid did or did not get sloshed on alcohol on Saturday night, but can tell immediately if a kid has started to smoke cannabis.

I make this point because I think it is extremely important we get the very best science we can when dealing with such drugs, and we make very sure we target the right thing. In my view and in the view of United Future nothing is more dangerous in this country right now than methamphetamines and cannabis being taken by children as young as 13, 14, or 15. I have even seen 11 to 12-year-olds on those drugs. We are seeing before our eyes the ruination of entire lives because of a habit occurring at that time of life, which is a very critical time for the brain’s development. That habit will have lifelong consequences. So at one level it is very unhelpful to claim that alcohol is actually more dangerous. We need to be more nuanced than that, to figure out where the real problem is, and to ensure that we take all the steps we can to protect our young people and the future of the nation.

Motion agreed to.