Psychoactive Substances Bill

It is not every day that a young woman walks into your electorate office just straight out of a psychiatric institution, where she had been hospitalised and was receiving intensive treatment for an addiction to, and symptoms arising from taking, synthetic cannabis. This young woman was very sick. She was 24 years old and did not have a history of drug taking. She had got herself into a situation where she had taken some synthetic cannabis and had quickly become addicted. She was very sick and she was very adamant that she wanted a law change as quickly as possible.

That was in March this year. Subsequently, my office has been besieged with a number of phone calls from schools, from concerned parents, and from other organisations around this issue.

This is, as we know, a huge issue for parents, for our children, for our community generally, for schools, for the police, and for our health services, and there has been some very good work done in my community by our health services. We have a toxicologist at the Dunedin Hospital, Dr Leo Schep, who has been doing some very good work on this issue and some studies on this issue. His work is yet to be released, but it will help with the treatment of addiction to these substances.

Following those representations, I visited dairies. I wrote to dairies—every dairy in my electorate. I visited them. I visited users in prison. I supported a petition in my electorate. I went back to those dairies that had said they were still selling it, and I asked them to cease. I spoke to the Dunedin police on a number of occasions and I met with organisations such as the Salvation Army.

Two weeks ago I was invited to and attended a symposium in Dunedin at the Wakari Hospital, which is run by the district health board and mental health services, and it included people working in inpatient services, community-based mental health services, emergency psychiatric services, specialist alcohol and drug services, and others. Here are some of the things that they said, arising from that meeting. They said that synthetic cannabis was a clinical burden on health services, that emergency department patients had cyclical vomiting and seizures from smoking synthetic cannabis, and that many of the patients had experienced delayed seizures up to a day after smoking synthetic cannabis. A 22-year-old man had been in the emergency department 14 times with synthetic cannabis - related issues in the past 6 months. Thirteen percent of admissions to the acute psychiatric ward at Wakari Hospital in a 14-week period earlier this year were related to synthetic cannabis. In 2010 there were no synthetic cannabis - related admissions to that hospital. The average age of patients admitted was 10 years younger than in 2010.

A community mental health nurse said that some of the synthetic cannabis manufacturers were using extremely clever marketing to target children, that we were fighting a losing battle, and that it was going to get worse before it gets better. This was said in the knowledge that this law was going to pass through Parliament. They said that patients were being admitted daily to the psychiatric wards to detoxify and that many of them had no prior history of mental illness or substance abuse.

I could go on and on about this issue. Thankfully, and as a result of the inputs to this bill, particularly the work put in on this side of the House by the Labour members—and I would especially like to acknowledge Iain Lees-Galloway—there is in the commentary on this bill a section headed “Possible increased demand on health services”, which states: “We acknowledge that with the banning of some substances currently available there could be increased demand on mental health and drug and alcohol services, which health providers will need to make provision for.” In the Committee stage of this bill I will be putting a question to the Minister as to what provisions are being made in the health services for the effect of this bill, and what this will mean for our communities such as the community in Dunedin, which is no different from many other communities around our country where the significant effects of these drugs will not cease as a result of passing this bill in the House.

As the police have said to me and my colleagues in Dunedin, these drugs are likely to go underground. People who are addicted to these drugs will still want to try to get them. There will be increased effects from these drugs. We need to know how we are going to handle them as a community, and in this House I think there has to be some responsibility taken by the Government for putting increased services into the services that are needed. Thank you.

It is a privilege and a pleasure to rise in the second reading of the Psychoactive Substances Bill. National is, obviously, sponsoring it and supporting it, and wants to see it passed as soon as possible. I must acknowledge my colleagues from both sides of the House on the Health Committee, and the great chairmanship of our very good chairman, Dr Paul Hutchison, on this particular issue. He actually brought quite a high degree of expertise to the debate, given his medical background.

When you look at something like the issue we are considering here, or when the House considers something like the issue it is considering here—not you entirely, Mr Assistant Speaker—there is a range of different arguments that you can put forward. The previous speaker, who just resumed her seat, Clare Curran, brought forward a lot of the constituent-type issues that each and every one of us has experienced since this became a common thing. There was an example right in my own electorate, in the Stratford area, where my good colleague and friend, the Hon Chester Borrows, took it upon himself, as a member of Parliament and a former police officer, to visit a dairy and suggest to them that it was not in their best interests, or certainly not in the best interests of the young people of our area, for them to be selling this substance, and they just said: “Well, it’s legal, so, you know, we make money from it.”

I am reminded of a very heartfelt submission we received from the Mayor of the Ashburton area. She brought forward a very good submission, in my opinion, on the type of investment that some of the retailers of this product were making and the type of return they may get from it. All of that leads to a sort of discussion about why we do not just ban it—why we do not just pass a law and make it illegal. Well, as most in the House will be aware, when you put in place a total prohibition, it seldom works. In fact, if you look back in our history, you will find that the King Country, an area I represent, in the late 1940s and early 1950s decided it was going to introduce a prohibition on alcohol. There were more moonshine distilleries and underground clandestine activities—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: My uncle ran the Manunui Club through the entire period.

I am not surprised by that, Mr Mallard. That does not surprise the House at all. In fact, we have often wondered what type of psychoactive substance might have been employed. The reality is that prohibition seldom works. It tends to drive these types of activities underground, and the end result is that you do not end up with the outcome that the community that wanted it banned in the first place might see as the ultimate outcome.

With all of those issues and all of that as a problem for the Government—it is where the rubber actually does meet the road—the Health Committee listened to a substantial body of evidence that would suggest that if the onus of proof as to the safety or otherwise, the lack of harm, and the minimisation of harm from these substances could be placed on the manufacturers and could be properly policed and checked regularly by an expert panel, which will be set up as a result of this, then the outcome for this would likely be much better.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Why does the member want to kill dogs?

The member asks a very good question: “Why would the member want to kill dogs?”. Well, there are some different individuals whom we would like to try these substances on. Dogs are not among them. The argument about animal welfare is one that I think most New Zealanders will be concerned about. The member needs to take a look at what the expert panel membership looks like. What he will find is that the head of the SPCA is on that panel. Does the member not understand that the SPCA is the organisation in New Zealand that, along with a lot of concerned people, looks after the welfare of animals? Why would you not take the advice of that body, as opposed to someone baying from the other side of the House about the misuse of animals? If the member were to care to look at the substance of the bill, he would find that even though that may possibly happen—there may be animals used in testing—all other testing systems will be exhausted before that happens.

What the member probably needs to have a closer look at—and clearly has not, to this point—is what the make-up is of the expert panel that will make recommendations on whether or not a substance is of minimum harm, and what the likely chances are of animals being used in the testing process to determine that outcome. I do not know whether the member is suggesting, because I would not even attempt to suggest that the member might suggest this, that perhaps this experimentation should take place on young people as opposed to animals.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: No, not at all.

No. Well, I would be surprised if the member had been suggesting that. But if without using animals you cannot test something to a point where you can establish that it has minimum harm, then what would the member suggest happens?

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: That it not be approved.

That it not be approved, so that the substance could actually then be made available without evidence that it is of minimum harm, and it could be experimented on in society. How would the Minister of Health or the expert panel advising the Minister know whether the substance is of minimum harm, without thorough testing?

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Just shocking—the member’s for the drug dealers.

The member over there baying, who suddenly has a new-found love for dogs, or other animals, as it may be, may go and have a look at what the—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I’ve been breeding dogs for 40 years, not killing them for drug dealers.

The member has been breeding dogs for 40 years. Well, I have been farming for that long, and I know that the member would not understand, but farming requires humane treatment of animals. There are plenty of other people who have been training and breeding dogs for that long as well, so he does not have a unique franchise on that. I have no doubt, if that member has been breeding dogs for 40 years, and lives in an urban environment, there would have been several animal welfare issues in the activity that the member has been involved in, because you cannot breed dogs in an urban environment without creating such an animal welfare environment. So there you go. The member has his own animal welfare expertise, obviously, and I would suggest that the member knows about as much about that as he knows about the bill that he is interrupting on. The reality is that this bill ends up in a situation where the best attempt at minimising risk to society, to young people in particular, has been achieved by going through the process that we have.

There are a number of other issues that I care to touch on. One of them is the fact that there has for a long time been a range of very suspect processes in terms of the production of these products, particularly party pills, which are becoming more and more common. I think the previous member to speak, Clare Curran, who made a lot more sense than the one who is interrupting, said that the incidence of hospital treatment and admission has substantially increased in the period since 2010, and there was a high degree of evidence to back that up. What has changed since 2010? Well, what has changed is the number of organisations that are producing this product, the amount of money they are able to make by selling it, the number of outlets that exist that trade in it, and the, I guess, societal acceptance that this is going to happen.

Of course, that is other than in the case that I mentioned earlier, where society said: “We do not accept that this should happen in our area. We do not accept that our dairies should sell it.”, and boycotted those premises. I understand that, at least on the front, they have stopped selling it. Whether or not it is still happening in a way that is not so public, I am not sure. But certainly that is one way that those who feel so strongly about it could do something about it—that is, of course, they could boycott those who are making this available, particularly to young people.

This law, or this bill once it becomes law, will give some certainty to, I guess, the safety of legal products. It will place the cost of that burden of proof on those who produce it, and it will help substantially in bringing about a change of behaviour, particularly amongst the young, who have been severely affected by it. I support the bill.

I am pleased to take the opportunity to have a short call on this speech—

💬 Eugenie Sage: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My apologies to my colleague for interrupting. Could I confirm that this is a split call?

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Correct, it is a split call.

What a quagmire of contradictions in this bill, the Psychoactive Substances Bill. For a party that believes in the power of the market and the wisdom of the market, it is good to hear some reality from the members on the other side.

I would firstly like to acknowledge the Hon Peter Dunne for pushing ahead. I am sure that the National Party was probably far more reluctant to push ahead with this bill and intervene on its sacred market. The market, as the member acknowledges, is both dangerous if not regulated and potentially lethal, of course, for too many people.

Although I have some concern for dogs, my primary concern is for kids. It is a shame that the National Government does not think beyond this bill and show that same level of concern for kids and for people who have no ability and no control. If I was to grow a few boysenberries, throw in a bit of sugar, and then try to sell it, I have to go through the Food Bill, which is about this thick, because of the requirements to sell that. But what we have here is a reluctant Government that is, thankfully, passing a piece of legislation to try to control drugs. I know that Peter Dunne pushed for it and I acknowledge that. I was rung by a friend who has suffered for a long time the monkey on his back of drug addiction, whose brother is a general practitioner who said: “Please, please carry on with the good work that Peter Dunne has done in this area, because I face on a regular basis young people coming into my surgery, who are all but destroyed by an addiction—by a problem created from legal highs.” So we must move in this area. I acknowledge that the Government has, with the provocation of Mr Dunne, dare I say, moved in this direction. I am less concerned about the effects on animals than I am about the effects on human beings. It is important that we move ahead here.

But I suggest that the bill is not perfect and I suggest that we do need to look carefully, and there will be some Supplementary Order Papers and some amendments that come up that the Government should look at very carefully. We cannot create more harm in our attempt to, of course, reduce harm in one area—two wrongs never make a right. We have to be sure that we are moving ahead, that the onus of proof of safety falls upon any chemist or any weirdo who wants to create these drugs that they say are recreational, but that we know are very, very harmful. My concern is particularly for a young woman who might be pregnant, who might consume these because she is told you can have a good time on them and they are safe, so therefore they must be OK. That is the worst possible outcome—in vitro effects on unborn children, and the effects on their lives from there on is the one thing that we have no idea of.

So I go back to the, I guess, precedents set in the Food Bill, where the Minister has indicated that we should go back and look at that bill and make improvements. It is this thick, and that is fair enough, because we do not want to produce anything in this country and sell it offshore that might in any way harm our consumers. Yet for how long have we had the ability for some wacky chemist to produce some—

💬 Mike Sabin: And what did Jim Anderton do for 8 years with BZP?

—weird outfit? And dare I say to the member over there be careful, because if he can guarantee that this piece of legislation will keep any of these harmful drugs off the shelves and off the market, that is great, and I acknowledge his faith.

What I say is that because of the reluctance of the National Government to move in this area, I am concerned that this bill will not do all the things that we know need to be done in this area—that is, to completely ban these unless someone can prove that any product sold for any consumption must be safe. We do that with food; we must do that with any other substance that may be ingested. I am not sure that the Government has got it right. The Opposition will scrutinise this, and look very carefully at all of the outcomes. But I state clearly that the most important focus must be on the kids and on the people who are affected by these drugs and who have no ability to control that ingestion—

Sorry to interrupt the honourable member.

Tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou e huihui mai nei ki roto i te Whare. E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe.

[Greetings to you and to us collectively assembled here in the House, and to you, the Speaker of the House.]

I am pleased to take a short call today on the Psychoactive Substances Bill on behalf of my Green colleague Mojo Mathers. The Green Party, and particularly Mojo Mathers, has worked with thousands of New Zealanders to oppose unnecessary and unethical testing on animals, which this bill still allows. The Green Party certainly supports the bill because we support minimising the harm that party pills cause and we want to have a modern, proportionate, and rational drug policy, as Kevin Hague has previously outlined. But we do not want the testing to ensure that these psychoactive substances are safe for humans to be done at the expense of animals, causing them pain, harm, and suffering.

Many, many New Zealanders support freedom from animal testing. We have seen that, when in just 1 month 60,000 people have signed a petition calling for animal testing of party pills to be ruled out. Many organisations put quite considerable time and effort into making submissions on this bill focusing on animal testing, and that was based on good faith and on the advice of the former Associate Minister of Health Peter Dunne that that was the best way for their concerns to be addressed. So the democratic process was seen to be very wanting when the chair and majority on the Health Committee decided that those submissions were out of scope and returned them. The Green Party then organised a separate hearing so that we could listen to the evidence—and it was very good and relevant evidence—that the Health Committee chose not to hear. So I want to thank everyone who made submissions.

On the basis of the evidence, the Green Party, through Mojo Mathers and her Supplementary Order Paper 260, is proposing an amendment to the bill. That amendment would ensure that any information from animal testing cannot be used in support of an application to register a psychoactive product. That would include information that came from overseas, and that would have the force of law once the bill came into law. In the last 6 days more than 7,700 people have emailed MPs asking for their parties to support Supplementary Order Paper 260 in Mojo Mathers’ name, so we are very pleased by the level of support that is getting, and we hope that parties in this House will also support that. Some have already; we hope others will follow suit.

We certainly acknowledge the change in the bill in clause 11A as reported back by the select committee. It is a significant improvement, particularly given the earlier decision around submissions. This new clause 11A would require that the advisory committee not rely on animal testing for psychoactive substances “if suitable alternatives exist.” and if those alternatives comply with the Animal Welfare Act. But the implementation of this clause would be very difficult to monitor, so it provides absolutely no certainty that animals would not continue to suffer for human benefit, and that they would not continue to be subject to pain and harm. Animal testing is notoriously unreliable, and that is why the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration have begun a process to replace all toxicology testing on animals with alternatives. That is because these alternatives produce results that are much more relevant to humans. Those alternatives include things like in vitro human cell line studies, computer models, micronucleus assay, in vitro absorption tests, and so on.

When other countries such as the United Kingdom are so much further ahead of us and are putting a ban on animal testing for all recreational substances, including alcohol and tobacco, we must act. We are lagging. We are not ahead of the field here. Why do we continue to use animal testing in New Zealand? Because it is cheaper than non-animal testing. We should not be making decisions around the safety of these psychoactive substances to protect the profit margins of industry. We should be making them on an ethical basis, and that ethical basis is to ensure that animals do not suffer pain and harm in order to protect humans. So we can vote for a modern, ethical, 21st century safety testing regime, if we vote—

The member’s time has expired. I understand that the next call is a split call.

I want to just reflect a little bit on the history of the synthetic drug scene and the background that really has been consequential in this bill, the Psychoactive Substances Bill. That is that back in the late 1990s and early 2000s when Matt Bowden and Logan Williams pioneered benzylpiperazine (BZP), or party pills, as they were commonly phrased. What was discovered through that was that the ability to manufacture a synthetic drug—something that people could get high on, and that could mimic the effects of the illicit drugs—found a popular market, particularly within the youth of New Zealand at a time that was quite critical because that was the same time that methamphetamine was growing. It sort of said to New Zealanders: “If you want to get high, let’s go out and take pills.”

Around 2008 BZP was banned, but long before that Logan Williams and Matt Bowden had signalled their ability to simply change a chemical make-up to derive analogues of BZP to achieve the same purpose. In fact, they almost saw it as sport, in my view. That is exactly what they did do, so by the time BZP was banned there was already a large volume of similar drugs out there and making their way into the market. That has really precipitated the cat and mouse situation that has brought about this bill. So the temporary class drug notices that were put in place to actually try to capture the drugs as they moved and were obviously classed as harmful, to some extent were able to put a stop to it, but only for the amount of time that the drug chemists could then remanufacture something else, and that is exactly what they did. Some 33 temporary class drug notices were issued. But what we can say both here in New Zealand and overseas is that, as long as there is the demand, the chemistry will always beat the legislation.

So what does this bill do? Well, at the heart of this bill it actually places the onus back on those who are producing the drugs to say that if they are producing a substance that a human being is going to consume, then it needs to be safe for consumption—

💬 Dr Paul Hutchison: Minimal risk.

—or minimal risk, low risk, or whatever. To me, “safe” is what it is all about. Ultimately, what we do know is that drugs such as K2 or some of the other synthetic cannabises and drugs of scene are far from low risk and are far from safe. The onus now goes back on to the manufacturers of the drugs. They must prove that they are of low risk for human consumption.

Some would say, and I have heard it certainly from Labour and the Greens, that this means we are creating a regulated drug market. Actually, I do not think that is what we are doing. There is nothing in this bill that says taking drugs is a legitimate thing. It is simply a way to get ahead of the ability to constantly chemically re-engineer the drugs to beat the legislation. This is not about legitimising the idea that drug taking is a good thing. The only safe drug-use is actually no drug use, and that conversation should not be lost in this bill.

When we talk about low harm—that is where the crux of this will come down to—we have to ask what would constitute low harm. I am pretty sure that any medical physician would say that smoking something would not be of low harm. Certainly, no doctor says to go and smoke your aspirin, or smoke this or smoke that, as part of a medical practice. So I cannot see anything that can be smoked as being of low harm. I cannot see anything that would cause depression or anything that would trigger any sort of mental illness as being of low harm. I could not see anything as being of low harm that had any addictive impact—that would cause withdrawal, craving, and bingeing. So that then says that anything, basically, that stimulates dopamine to a degree that would create a high would be harmful because it would create withdrawal, cravings, and bingeing, which is the nature of the addictive cycle, which means that people typically turn to something more significant.

In the Committee of the whole House I will talk to Supplementary Order Paper 260 in the name of the member Mojo Mathers, but, suffice to say, what is being tested at the moment, what is the guinea pig at the moment, is human beings. This bill is about taking control out of drug-peddlers’ hands, the people who prey on vulnerable young people. I have no hesitation in commending it.

As a member of the Health Committee, it is a pleasure to take this final split call on the second reading of the Psychoactive Substances Bill. The bill is being sponsored by the new Associate Minister of Health, Todd McClay, but in my opening comments I would like to congratulate and give credit to the Hon Peter Dunne for his work in preparing this bill to bring it to the House, and for the credible way in which he has developed it so that it represents a new and revolutionary way of addressing the pernicious dangers of so-called legal highs. This bill, as Peter Dunne said in his speech earlier on in this debate, will be a game-changer in the way we regulate party pills and other so-called legal highs. I support this bill, and I congratulate both Peter Dunne and Todd McClay on bringing it to the House.

The bill regulates psychoactive substances, or legal highs, so that substances have to be proved to be low risk before they can be sold. Cleaning up the legal high industry is part of this Government’s drive to deliver Better Public Services, and this bill is all about safety—human safety. New Zealanders deserve to know that products available to them are safe, and that they are not being put in harm’s way with untested, risky, unknown substances. The cost of testing these substances will also be borne by the manufacturers rather than the taxpayer. This bill will seamlessly replace the current temporary class drug notice regime, which has until now worked reasonably effectively. This new bill, when it becomes law, will change that regime and replace it with a whole new level unknown in other places in the world, so we will be a world leader.

This bill includes provisions to establish a regulatory authority within the Ministry of Health, and part of the ministry’s job will be to consider and approve or decline psychoactive substances. It will be required to issue a manufacturing code of practice; it will issue importation, manufacturing, and sales licences; and it will conduct post-marketing monitoring to audit and recall product if necessary. New Zealand has faced an acceleration in the development of these new recreational drugs. They are all over the place. They are in dairies and supermarkets. They are dreadful products that are being sold over the counter all over the country at the moment. The regulatory authority established by the bill will consider and approve or decline psychoactive substances, and it will assess the toxicological and clinical data for each product. But even if products meet that standard, the Government will still be insisting that tight controls be in place around their availability. So from the day that this bill is enacted, neighbourhood dairies will no longer be allowed to stock any such products, and nor will sales to those aged under 18 be permitted.

The bill has, to a large degree, been hijacked, if I can put it that way, by the issue of animal testing. Although everybody, I think, would accept and understand that animal testing is an issue, and most people—probably all people—feel pretty strongly about it, the bill provides that if there are suitable non-animal tests, then they must and will be used. This bill is a response to the harm caused by untested products, and the countervailing consideration here is human safety. I think that is a fact we should not lose sight of.

One of the things that interest me is that in the select committee consideration of the bill we had unanimous approval for what I thought was a very sensible approach. Labour members bought into it. It seems to me that Labour’s science spokesman, one David Shearer, seems to have been rolled now by a faction within the Labour Party to change what is a very sensible piece of science and to turn it into an animal rights issue. That is detracting from the big picture here, which is the harm and injury being done to mostly our young people. And so despite Labour members, including Annette King, all having been in favour of voting for that compromise, it seems now that a faction within Labour has rolled David Shearer, its science spokesman. For a serious mainstream political party to have been put in that position is clearly very worrying.

This is a good bill. I support it. I commend it to the House. It is good legislation.

Bill read a second time.