Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Over the past eight months since my bill was drawn, I have been struck afresh with the urgency and importance of this issue. I want to start by thanking the Justice Committee and their diligence in addressing this bill, listening to the variety of submitters who appeared before it, and reporting it back to the House. I would also like to thank New Zealand First for their support in getting it to this stage.

During this time, I have also met with experts across numerous fields—experts in toxicology and public policy, social workers, and police officers—as well as talking with family members of those who have lost their lives from these horrific drugs. Despite the variety of perspectives, each has been personally affected by psychoactive substances here in New Zealand. The toxicologists have seen their A & Es filled with zombified patients, the public policy experts have grappled with the insufficiency of our legal framework, the social workers have comforted the whānau bereaved by the loss of a loved one, and the police have encountered the panic of teenagers and young adults trying to help their unconscious friends. These Kiwis have experienced first-hand the destructive effect psychoactive substances have in our community. All of them agree that disrupting supply is a critical component of our response to this issue. That is precisely what my bill does.

More than 45 New Zealanders have died over the past 12 months from consuming these drugs, a number of them since the first reading of my bill. In the face of this tragedy, it is easy to throw our hands in the air and to cry out that taking a law and order approach to this issue is not working. It is time, some may claim, for a different approach. It is time to treat this solely as a health issue. I sympathise with this argument.

We will never eliminate the harm these drugs cause by solely looking at this issue from the perspective of law and order. As a Parliament, we have to acknowledge that more needs to be done to support those suffering from addictions. That is why, earlier this year, I lodged a petition calling for a parliamentary inquiry into addiction to synthetics, so that our health system can be better prepared and equipped to help those trapped in the deadly cycle of addiction. The Government has ignored this petition, which would’ve allowed a public inquiry into how we could address this serious issue, frustratingly.

However, this is not solely a health issue; it never has been. The bill before the House this evening does not target users of drugs but those who supply these substances, those who think only of personal profit, taking advantage of vulnerable Kiwis. Fortunately, we don’t have to just take one option or the other but can compassionately care for the health needs of drug users while at the same time insisting that those who seek to make money off the suffering and death of others deserve to be punished for their callous indifference.

This bill addresses supply. Let me say that again: this bill addresses the supply of drugs, not the suppliers of drugs, not the users. By taking a clear stance against the distribution of these drugs, by increasing the penalties for dealing, bringing them into line with class C drugs and working with New Zealand First on their Supplementary Order Paper 23, we will be deterring the suppliers of these drugs. Those who are supplying drugs are not the victims of the suffering caused by drugs; they are the perpetrators of this devastating harm. We are acting irresponsibly and negligently if, as legislators of this country, we do not condemn through law the distribution of these drugs with harsher penalties than the paltry sentences that are currently in place.

I want to make one thing very clear: this bill will not be the final solution to this problem that grips New Zealand. The harm caused by psychoactive substances is a complicated, multifaceted issue, and additional strategies and legislation will certainly be needed, but these additional approaches must complement a decisive condemnation of distributing these substances, not undermine it.

Through the process of advancing this legislation, I’ve had the privilege of working with Lewis Jones, who joins us in the gallery here tonight.

💬 SPEAKER: Order!

Lewis is the father of Calum Jones, a young man who died due to an overdose of synthetic drugs in September last year. I think the greatest tragedy of Jones’ story is that he was going clean. Jones had spent weeks in rehab and was sober, but because of how easy it is to get these drugs, within days of leaving rehab he was dead, and the perpetrator, when caught and sentenced, was given only home detention.

Underlining our justice system is a duty first and foremost to victims. For one person to take advantage of a vulnerable person for the sake of profit is a crime which demands justice. We must deter those supplying these drugs and those who might choose to supply these drugs because of the incredibly low penalties for doing so.

The Minister of Health has recently announced his intent to reclassify two strands of psychoactive substances as class A drugs. This is a positive and necessary measure, but it’s ultimately insufficient. Every batch of psychoactive substances is chemically different, and it is easy for manufacturers to simply change their recipes to avoid longer sentences. This bill, however, by amending the Psychoactive Substance Act, ensures that a consistent penalty is applied to those who supply any and all chemical compounds which make up psychoactive substances. If the Government only opts for classifying substances under the Misuse of Drugs Act, they will always be playing catch-up.

While the public of New Zealand is waking up to the harms of synthetics, there is without a doubt a culture of treating synthetics as a mild and safe drug. As submitters argued, if the dealers of synthetic drugs receive a maximum of two years’ imprisonment and the dealers of herbal cannabis can receive at least eight years, the public will be under the impression that synthetic drugs are not taken seriously.

I challenge every member of this House to consider the harm that has been caused to our communities through psychoactive substances and to support this bill in addressing the distribution side of this issue. I do not stand here and claim that this bill is a solution to the entire issue, but, likewise, we are foolish and derelict in our responsibilities if we believe that a lack of healthcare and counselling is what leads someone to go into their communities and sell drugs that they know will kill. We must take a compassionate approach, but it is not compassionate to those who prey on vulnerable people and have unfettered access to them—it is not compassionate to let them continue to do that. If a health-based approach means letting criminals poison our young people and they receive home detention, we need to rethink our perceptions of justice.

This bill is a much-needed response to this issue. It is consistent with a compassionate yet decisive approach and is necessary to address the changing environment of psychoactive substances. I commend this bill to the House.

I read from the Justice Committee report that the New Zealand Police Association argued that substance use and crime are often linked due to the high cost of a drug habit fed by a criminal marketplace. I bring to the attention of this House the fact that the police, who deal with the hardest end of drug crime in their organisation, as a Police Association, argue that this bill is not supported by evidence that increasing penalties will deter the people that use or supply these drugs.

The association, rather, supports a more holistic approach to the problems that are created by synthetic drugs, and I agree with them—I agree with them. I think we as a society need to tackle the real problems that underlie drug addiction. We know that drug addiction is driven by loneliness. It is driven, often, by a history of a difficult childhood. We know that there are many common factors that affect people’s addiction, and we can see the links that are there and plain to see. Simply increasing the penalties for the use of these drugs will criminalise more people. We do need to target the suppliers—I absolutely agree with the member in that respect—but I don’t think that doing that alone will achieve anything. In fact, if it captures those who are users as well, it will do—or it certainly risks doing—more harm than good.

Part of a health approach is attacking supply, and I want to speak little about that. I think, personally, that there are other ways to get to this issue, and one of them is to look at reclassifying, under the Misuse of Drugs Act, those known substances. That is something that we can do. Unfortunately, the drug law that we’ve inherited is rather clunky.

💬 Hon Members: Oh, here we go.

The members opposite will mock this, but this is a serious issue. This is a very serious issue, and I accept that the member who’s brought the bill to Parliament treats this as a serious issue. It’s the members behind him that are doing the mocking.

We have a serious challenge on our hands with drug law reform to ensure that we are actually helping those who are caught in the web of addiction. We know that those caught in the web of addiction need our help and support. We know our health system is not geared up appropriately to support them. We know the police are calling for different interventions. We know that those at our customs level know that these drugs are coming into the country. And the real issue is both getting to the supply but also making sure that we’re not criminalising the users of these substances.

On top of that, of course, we know that desperate circumstances drive people to take drugs, so we know that the inequalities that are in our society need to be addressed. The homelessness, the housing crisis—all of these things have a contributing effect at some level. Unless we address the real causes of the misery that underpins the use of these substances—and, particularly, let’s note that the substances we’re talking about, the psychoactive drugs, are incredibly cheap. They are being used, often, by our most vulnerable and desperate. They’re not people who are thinking through the logical consequences of their actions. They are desperate people, and so I think that’s why we’ve seen so many of these submissions speak about the lack of evidence that longer prison sentences contribute to reduced harm.

I recommend the select committee report to the House and to the members of the public who might be listening in to this parliamentary session, because people who have expertise in this area have contributed a great deal to that report, I can see. They know that the prohibition of drugs causes harm, and I recommend to the House a book, Chasing the Scream, by Johann Hari. Now, the man who wrote the book has been accused of plagiarism earlier in his career. I don’t think that detracts from the story he tells of the history of the war on drugs and its failure to achieve what we need to achieve in our societies, which is support for those who are struggling with addictions and a hard approach to those who are driving supply.

But I don’t think that this is the approach that’s going to get us there. We need a more comprehensive approach that looks at community education, that looks at housing, and that treats drug use as a health issue and makes sure that when addicts come forward for support, there is support there for them—that we actually have a sufficient response to support addicts in the health system when they come forward. Our health workers work incredibly hard to make this happen, but they have been stretched for a long time.

I see also in the select committee report that Māori groups have come forward and said that this change that’s proposed will disproportionately affect Māori. Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Whātua submitted that increasing penalties around psychoactive substances would have a disproportionate effect on Māori. And we know, also, that in our criminal justice system those who are driven to crime by addictions then form a large portion of that criminal population who are incarcerated, many of them Māori, many of them disadvantaged in first place, trying to overcome their disadvantage, and then finding themselves in places of difficulty, taking solace in drugs that are incredibly harmful.

I want to say, also, in my other role as the Minister of Health, not just as an ordinary member on members’ day, that these are incredibly harmful drugs. Any people that do have a choice about them should avoid them like the plague. The psychoactive substances being peddled on our streets right now are incredibly variable in their potency, and many of them are new substances that have only arrived in the country in recent weeks. The supply is changing constantly. These are big challenges, and we do need a comprehensive and real response to the real issues that are driving the problems that we have in our society with these drugs.

It is the sellers and suppliers that should be punished, and in order to do that we need greater surveillance powers. Now, this bill doesn’t achieve it. The Misuse of Drugs Act does have the ability to put surveillance powers in place—greater surveillance powers for the police. That’s why I’m looking at whether there is a measure there that would be more appropriate, because we want to interrupt the major suppliers but at the same time we don’t want to get caught up in the existing structure in the Misuse of Drugs Act that would also criminalise those petty users on the street in desperate circumstances. So that is something that we will be dealing with.

Obviously, these deaths go back quite a long way. I don’t want to politicise it, as the members opposite seem to be doing, but let’s acknowledge that this problem has been growing for a number of years, and people have been dying for several years because of some of these products. It requires a serious solution and not a knee-jerk reaction. I am not condemning the member for bringing this matter, because I do think that the increase in penalties for those suppliers—well, more importantly, not the increase in penalties but getting to those suppliers is the critical thing. I accept that he is genuine in his intent in wanting to make a difference here.

Let’s go back to the fact that there has never been convincing evidence that increased penalties act as a deterrent effect. It’s appropriate that there should be penalties for those at the hard end of supply, but just simply increasing them is a fool’s victory—it doesn’t have any impact at all.

I also want to commend, before I finish, the work undertaken by the National Drug Intelligence Bureau on the development of a proposed drug early warning system. We know that one of the things that we can do and must do—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! I’ve let the member run fairly wide, but I will remind him that on the second reading we are debating the bill before the House, not matters outside that area. I think I was fairly loose on the previous speaker, so I let the member run. But I do want to remind members now that they are debating the bill, not matters outside it.

Quite right, Mr Speaker. So to come back to the point, there’s a lack of evidence that increasing penalties will make a difference in terms of deterring those who are dealing with these drugs. Māori have submitted that this measure will have a detrimental effect on their well-being. Those who submitted on the bill were very clear that a wider all-of-Government approach would be necessary to reduce drug harm, which I believe to be the intent behind the bill, despite the fact that I think it just doesn’t get there.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to take a call on this, the second reading of the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill. I’d like to start by acknowledging the sponsor of the bill, who brought this bill to the House, and that is Simeon Brown. Every member of the House that comes to this Parliament is passionate about something, right? We’re all united by one thing, and that is wanting to make our country a better place for the generations now and the generations in the future. He brought this bill to this House because he’s actually deeply passionate about this issue. The passion was evident through the select committee process and with the submitters that came before the Justice Committee. He’s already spoken to a tragic case of a young man that went far too early because he was in the grip of these psychoactive substances.

I want to acknowledge the Minister of Health. He’s taken the time to take a 10-minute call in this House on this bill. The thing that I want to address is the fact that, in the opening of his speech and in the closing, he said that “We’re not going to support this, because we’re only going to support legislation that’s evidence-based.” Now, I could accept that, because I actually agree. I think that having evidence and stats and figures that can back up policy decisions is very important, and I was proud that when we were in Government that’s exactly what we did. We were working very hard to make sure that we could gather even more evidence and data to support decisions that were being made.

But if you are going to apply that rule across the board, and if you’re going to stand in the House and you’re going to say that you’re not going to support this bill of Simeon Brown because you don’t have the evidence to back up that it will make a difference, then don’t bring legislation to us because you want us to support it, and then when we ask for the evidence, you can’t provide it. It means that you’re applying one rule to the Opposition, in terms of members’ bills and legislation that comes to the House, and you’re applying another rule to yourselves with a much lower bar.

I acknowledge that we’ve got the Minister of Justice in the House tonight. I’ve made a public commitment to work with him, in terms of the work that he wants to achieve. I don’t doubt his passion and his drive to want to make genuine change for the better in our criminal justice system. However, we had a meeting two weeks ago, just before the recess, where there’s several Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) that are going to be introduced into this House as one amendment in relation to the Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill. Now, we are looking through that, and we are going over it carefully, and there’s already areas that we’ve identified that although it hasn’t been through caucus yet, there’s a high chance that we will support parts of it.

💬 SPEAKER: Order!

I’ll come, Mr Speaker—

💬 SPEAKER: Well, get there.

I’m trying to address some of the issues that were raised by the Minister. I know that you gave him some scope—I’d appeal and ask—

💬 SPEAKER: And I’ve narrowed it down now. We’ve had one wide scope each, and we’re now getting back to the bill.

That’s OK, fair enough. So, anyway, the point is simply this: a lot of those SOPs, there’s no evidence to back them up, and yet we’ve been asked to support them and yet the Government is advancing them as Government bills.

💬 SPEAKER: Order! I warned the member. Even if the SOPs were about this bill, it’s not the right time to discuss them—and the SOPs that the member’s referring to aren’t anything to do with this bill. It’s not the time for a general discussion about Government practice. It is a second reading of a very specific, very tight piece of legislation. The Hon Mark Mitchell, on his last warning.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. So I’m just working through the list here and I’m trying to address the issues that the Minister raised in his address to the House.

In terms of saying that only a health-based approach is going to make any difference at all in terms of how drug dealers—and this bill relates directly to drug dealers, people that are actually dealing illegal psychoactive substances. Actually, yes, you can have a health-based approach, and yes, that could sit alongside a piece of legislation like this, but they should go together. You shouldn’t be saying, “No, we’re going to pursue just a health-based approach”, and using increased penalties or saying that increased penalties isn’t going to make a fundamental difference. How can you stand in the House and say this? Penalties act in two ways. One is, yep, you want it to be a deterrent. You want a prospective drug dealer to look and say, “Actually, you know what, if I get caught doing this, I don’t really want to go to jail for two years. I want to remain free. I value my freedom.” The other thing about penalties is this: as a country—if you choose to become a drug dealer, if you choose to peddle harm in our community and you get caught, then you’re going to go to jail. There’s going to be a penalty there for it. We’re going to say, as a nation, “We don’t accept that.”

I want to extend an invitation to the Minister. I want to say to him, come with me on just about any day of the week to the North Shore accident and emergency department. Come with me, we’ll go together, and I’ll show you what the people that are in the A & E department, in various states of—well, some of them, actually, as we know, actually end up dying. Others who are in early stages where they need some more minor treatment—come and see what the staff there at the A & E are actually dealing with. Come and see how many Kiwis—how many daughters and sons, fathers and mothers, are actually lying in the A & E because they have had an adverse effect or an overdose with these psychoactive substances. He says that the Police Association are saying that they don’t have any evidence to say that this would make any marked effect.

I was in Christchurch about three or four weeks ago. I was lucky enough to be briefed and hosted by Superintendent John Price , the outstanding area commander down there. At the time that I arrived in Christchurch, there had just been 24 people admitted into the critical care unit at Christchurch Hospital because they had taken a bad batch of psychoactive substances. He said any tool that they could have to deal with it, to deal with the dealers, to deal with the people that are peddling this harm, would actually be helpful for the front-line staff in the way that they are trying to apply the rules and they’re trying to deal with this. So, again, I’d say to the Minister: actually get out there. Get into the community, ask the people that are actually having to enforce the laws and are actually having to deal with it—

💬 Hon Dr David Clark: Ask them if extending the term will make a single scrap of difference, because the health workers will tell you it doesn’t. The health workers will tell you it doesn’t—those people you just talked about it.

So the Minister, again, is challenging the fact; he thinks that this bill that has been brought to the House to increase the sanction, to actually bring it in line with class C drugs—and tell dealers, the people that are actually dealing and peddling this substance in our communities—he’s trying to say that we as a Parliament should not be saying, “Actually, if you want to go out there and you want to deal these drugs, if you choose to do that, we’re going to come down and we’re going to have a harsh penalty. And you’re actually going to be taken out of the community that you’re creating the harm”, and it gives the police the tool to be able to do that.

So, again, finally, I would just ask the Minister to reflect on three things. One is: yes, a health-based policy should sit right alongside a punitive regime, in terms of us sending a clear message and saying—and by the way, Minister, they’re not choir boys and choir girls, these people that choose to become drug dealers. They’re actually people that enjoy generating the revenue from it. They prey on vulnerable people, the same vulnerable people that we want to help—

💬 Kiritapu Allan: They’re usually vulnerable—

—and they’re very open and overt about it. Sorry, what was that? What was that? I didn’t hear that. OK, well, if you’re going to interject, at least make the comments so I can hear it so I can respond to it.

💬 Dr Deborah Russell: You don’t have to respond—you can just ignore it.

💬 Kiritapu Allan: You don’t need to respond.

I don’t have to respond. OK, that’s fine. That’s right—they weren’t prepared to actually repeat the comment, which says it all.

The other thing, Minister, is that although you don’t have the evidence base that you want from the officials, if you’re going to apply that rule, then apply it to yourselves as well. Stop bringing legislation to us and asking us to support it when you have no evidence to back it up. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity to speak on the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill. I’ll begin by saying that I think every member in this House recognises that this is a serious issue, and the sponsoring member clearly recognises that it is a serious issue. He’s made the effort to bring this bill to the House and run it through, and come back here for this second reading. I suspect that Mr Brown asked himself, and continues to ask himself, the same question that I do—and I ask it of officials, and I asked it of them recently: what is it that we can do as quickly as possible to stop the next death as a consequence of these substances being available? That’s the urgent challenge that we now have.

We know these substances are out there, they’re in the community, they’re being used, they are harming people, they are causing injury, and they are causing death. And when we hear that there are coroners now investigating between 40 and 45 deaths attributed to the use of these substances—psychoactive substances, or synthetic cannabis, as they are called—then we have a very serious issue that we have to address.

The sponsoring member takes the view that more punishment or the threat of more punishment will be enough to decrease, possibly even eliminate, supply so that we remove the threat. Now, that type of thinking is so far removed from the lived experience of those people using these substances that it beggars belief. Actually, that is not the way—whether it’s the pushers or the users—to deal with this issue. The question we might ask is not just about supply—we know folks are out there, taking advantage of the vulnerable, peddling these vicious substances, causing mayhem and harm and death, but there are people who are in the market to purchase the stuff. People are looking for a high, a rapid high, and sometimes, in fact often, a very dangerous high and a very dangerous reaction.

We might ask ourselves the question: why is that happening? Why are people feeling the need? What is it in their lives that drives them to want to search out this stuff, to not particularly care about the substance they’re taking, or to be misled and not be cautious at all because they’re so desperate to achieve a high and a very cheap one? And when we look at the kind of typical profile of the users of synthetic cannabis, they are people who are the more marginalised in our community, folks living on the street, mostly disconnected from a lot of institutions and a lot of social norms, people who live on the street day to day. They are the users of this substance.

Just saying “You know what? We’re going to increase the possibility that somebody peddling this stuff might go to jail for longer.” is somehow going to stop the supply? I doubt it because, as we know with supply, one guy goes into prison and there’s somebody there to take their place straight away. Is increasing the sentence going to change demand? Uh-uh. Not at all. Not ever. This doesn’t change the fundamental problem, and the challenge we have in this country with drugs, particularly drugs that are dangerous, that are potentially fatal, is actually to start to deal with the real problem. What is the source of the problem, and what can we do to stop the user feeling that that is the best option for them, that that is the way out for them?

As for increasing the potential prison sentence, we know, of course, that the justice system won’t impose the maximum sentence except in the most extreme and extraordinary cases. So it won’t be eight years.

💬 Simeon Brown: So two years.

You’ll lift it from two years but it will never be eight years, but it might be a little bit more than the average sentence now. Will it change a thing? Will it change a thing? I take the word of the police officers who I meet who say, “Uh-uh. That ain’t going to make a difference. There’s other stuff we need to do.” And they are out there doing it, trying to get to grips with the social issues, the social questions that are driving young, often, and mainly disconnected people who feel as if they’ve got no hope, no option, no choice, not much of a life. What are we doing about that? How are we helping that problem? Because that’s the real challenge.

I have immense respect for the member who’s just spoken, the Hon Mark Mitchell, and there is a lot that we can agree on and, I’m sure, at some point will agree on. But what this bill ought to kind of demonstrate to us, to this House, to every member in this House, is that we have a major challenge in this country, in this great country of ours, in these strong good communities of ours. We have this insidious problem, at least with this form of drug—synthetic cannabis as we call it.

Actually, what this bill ought to lead us to do and ought to lead Mr Brown to think and to act upon, and all members opposite to act upon, is to say, “You know what? We’re all in this together. These are our communities that all of us in this House are here to represent.” And if we’re serious about addressing the synthetic cannabis problem, the other psychoactive substances problems, the other drug problems that we know are causing mayhem, the meth problem—the peddling of which leads to much longer sentences than for synthetic cannabis at the moment; sentences that haven’t done a thing for supply—we might want to think together, all of us, that there is a set of other problems underpinning this one that we might want to work together on.

I would invite members opposite, including Mr Brown, who I know is passionate about this issue—that’s why he’s gone to the trouble of bringing this bill here—and say, “Let’s find a way that all parties in this House and all members in this House can work together on these problems and find some real solutions.” Those members opposite—of course they should be heaping the pressure on this Government and my colleagues and members on this side of the House, and talking about the need for a well-rounded, whole solution, not just parts of it; not just the rhetoric, not just the kind of grandstanding measures, the chest-beating “We’ll increase the penalties and do more punishment.”, because that doesn’t fix the problem.

So as we consider this bill, I invite members opposite to take the opportunity to consider whether or not extending the punishment for a small fraction of the problem, the peddlers, is really going to make a difference. Because there is no evidence that it will, and all the evidence points to there being a broader set of problems that need a whole range of solutions and different aspects to those solutions. When this House gets the opportunity, as it almost inevitably will in the next two years, and when we start to grapple with some of these health issues and the social issues that are driving this, I would hope that members opposite might find it within themselves to say, “You know what? None of us has a monopoly of wisdom on this. None of us can claim to have all the solutions or the best solutions, but within us we have effective solutions, a number of things, a range of things, a range of responses that can make a difference.”

That’s the challenge for this House; not this bill, not this legislation. That’s why we’ll continue to oppose this. We—my colleague the Minister of Health, the Hon David Clark, and my colleague the Minister of Police, the Hon Stuart Nash, and other members on this side of the House and non-executive members—are working hard to face the challenge of finding the range of effective solutions that mean that the young people who are prone to using these substances, who are attracted to these substances, and young, middle-aged, and older people who are disconnected, whose lives have fallen apart and who are attracted to a cheap high, might actually get a more effective solution from the stuff that we can put in place.

That’s the challenge New Zealand has. That’s the challenge this country has. That’s the challenge this House has, and I invite members to work with us, for us all to work together. None of us should be puffing our chest out and saying, “I’m the hero here.” We’ve all got to work on this together and find real solutions that aren’t about beating up and punishing people but are about helping people in desperate need, about calling to account those who would cause harm, but ultimately getting the stuff off our streets and making life better for those for whom it is a misery.

Thank you, sir. It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First in support of this Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill. There are a few points that I want to make about this bill on behalf of New Zealand First—our stance and why we take this stance. The most important is obviously why we are supporting this bill. The main reason is that this focuses on dealers, manufacturers, and suppliers—that’s it. It is not talking about those who are addicted, those who are suffering, those who are vulnerable, and those who are users. We are talking about gangs. We are talking about the dealers, who don’t care how many people they kill; the manufacturers, who don’t care how many people are addicted. Actually, they want more people to be addicted, because it makes them more money. They don’t care about the effects; all they care about is themselves.

I have got no idea who in this House would have any sympathy whatsoever for those manufacturers, those dealers, and those people who peddle this—well, people call it a drug; it’s more like just a chemical.

💬 Hon Members: Poison.

It’s a poison. We have heard the stories, and we all know that there are dozens and dozens of people dying from this stuff every year, and it’s getting worse. It’s increasing and it’s an epidemic. There is no doubt also that, in isolation, this bill—will it stop all of those deaths? Will it stop all of those people from becoming addicted? Probably not, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be taking a hard stance on those manufacturers and those dealers. There is no doubt that we must increase the penalties for the supply and manufacture of this poison.

We don’t believe, in New Zealand First, that this is the perfect solution. We’ve heard reasons from the speakers from the Labour Party, the Ministers from the Labour Party, about why it’s not a perfect solution. Actually, we agree with that, but if we’re standing in this House and the choice that we have is to do nothing, to kick the can down the road, or to make the choice to support something that will go perhaps just some way to deterring people from supplying this poison to those vulnerable people that we want to protect, then that’s the kind of bill that New Zealand First is going to support. The fact is we must do something—we must do something.

We do have some caveats and some concerns with the bill—we do, because it’s not perfect; there are some areas it does not cover, some important areas. The genesis and purpose of this bill is to move the maximum sentence from two years for manufacture and supply to eight. It’s been identified and mentioned before, but this is—and it needs to be understood—a maximum sentence. The judges still have discretion. The judges still have a raft of tools to use if they so wish and decide on the individuals that come in front of them. This is just a maximum sentence. We heard one of the previous speakers say that this will only criminalise more people. That is absolutely not true; all it does is allow the judge to dish out a harsher penalty to those same people, and when they get those maximum penalties and those prison sentences, they are reserved for the worst of the offenders—for the worst of the offenders. Why on earth would we not allow our judicial system to increase the penalties for the worst of those offenders? It makes no sense whatsoever that we will not give those extra tools to the judges.

One of the Ministers quoted from the Police Association submission. I would also like to quote something from the Police Association submission and in most part New Zealand First agrees with what the submission actually says. It says, “The Association recognises the link between habitual psychoactive drug use and crime is largely due to the high cost of a drug habit fed by a criminal marketplace. Therefore as with any other criminally supplied drug it seems logical to target the supplier as this amendment intends.” It goes on to say the association “would like to see an emphasis on a holistic approach to dealing with these illicit substances”—100 percent agree; there is no disagreement from New Zealand First with that statement—“one which prioritises factors contributing to addiction. Within the context of a broad review an extension of prison sentences for suppliers and manufacturers may turn out to be part of the equation, but we do not consider it the sole fix.” Absolutely—this is part of the equation, and if we’ve been asked in this House to make a decision about whether we want to vote for a piece of legislation that is part of the solution—understood it’s not the sole fix; but is part of the solution—then I wonder why we are not all doing that tonight.

I’d also, in my last few minutes, talk about the Misuse of Drugs Act, because it’s quite important and it’s actually one of the reasons why Simeon Brown has moved the maximum years of imprisonment from two to eight, because two is equivalent to a class C drug—importation, manufacture, or supply. The caveat, as I mentioned earlier—one of them is that New Zealand First’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) is agreed to and passes in this House—is actually to increase the maximum sentence from two years to 14 years. The reason why we have decided on 14 years is that it is equivalent to a class B drug. If you look at class C drugs, you are talking about cannabis plant, cannabis seed, coca leaf. If you look at the class B drugs, we are talking about drugs like opium, morphine, amphetamine. We believe that the—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! I am going to—the member sits down when I stand up. The member can make a passing reference to an SOP, but he cannot go into detail on it at the second reading. He must wait until the committee stage.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Minister also mentioned that there was consideration being taken for bringing the psychoactive drugs, or those types of drugs, into the Misuse of Drugs Act and, potentially, into class A. I think that’s a very important discussion to have. I think that we need to be able, as part of the holistic approach, to give the police the ability that the Misuse of Drugs Act actually gives them—the tools that it gives them, the search and surveillance tools that it gives them.

We will be supporting this bill because we have an epidemic that is ever-increasing and thus far, over the years that it’s been occurring, we have not been able to come up with a solution. But we believe that this is a part of that solution. We believe that it is necessary as a deterrent—not only that but as a tool for our judicial system to use at their discretion. New Zealand First will be supporting this bill, and we will be looking forward to the development of a more holistic approach in this search for a solution for this poison that is on our streets. Thank you.

There’s a very simple question for Parliament with this bill: is the penalty of two years’ imprisonment adequate for people that are supplying and distributing psychoactive substances that have killed 45 fellow New Zealanders in the last 12 months? My colleague Simeon Brown has brought this bill to the Parliament to extend that to eight years. Given the epidemic that we have with these substances around New Zealand, I totally support the measure in the bill, and I’m deeply disappointed that both the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Health and the Labour Party and the Green Party are opposing this practical measure against something that is having such a devastating impact on communities up and down New Zealand.

In my own community, if you go to A & E, if you talk to the GPs, if you talk to the ambulance officers, and if you talk to those in our schools, you’ll hear that these psychoactive substances are wreaking havoc in communities all over New Zealand. Actually, it is in our poorest and our most vulnerable communities where these substances are doing the most harm.

I, like the sponsor of this bill, want to draw the House’s attention to the submission we heard at the Justice Committee from Mr Lewis Jones. I’ve been in Parliament for a while. I’ve heard a lot of select committee submissions. No person on any select committee could help but feel compassion and be moved by the tragic story of the death of his son Calum—the way in which he got access to these psychoactive substances, the tragic story of his life being trapped by them, the desperate attempts of his family to get support—and I am angry because Labour members of the committee blocked National, as recorded in the minutes, from just giving a human dimension from the loss of that one sad life to be able to tell the very human story that’s relevant to the debate on this bill.

I want members opposite to reflect on the powerful submission that we received from the Salvation Army. Now, the Salvation Army aren’t some politically biased organisation. In our communities up and down New Zealand, they do more work at the coalface of dealing with those people whose lives are wrecked by these sorts of substances. The Salvation Army does not come from some of that punitive or reactionary culture. They are sensible, practical people, who back this bill.

I found the arguments from the Minister of Justice against this bill to be nothing less than pathetic. He said that the answer was not penalties alone, and of course he’s right. Of course we need education. Of course we need to make sure that there is proper treatment and drug rehabilitation services across the board. But you don’t need a bill in Parliament to be able to fund improved services. You don’t provide education programmes by having a bill in Parliament. The one thing we do do in Parliament is set down what the criminal law is and what behaviour in this society is totally unacceptable. The peddling of these substances is unacceptable, and that’s why we should pass this bill.

I also want to draw to Parliament’s attention the well-informed and passionate submission from Mr Paul Quigley, a toxicologist. It was not some sort of emotional reaction. He’s somebody who’s an expert in this area, who equally said that our current law is out of step and that the very weak penalty of only two years for these substances is inadequate.

I was particularly concerned by the statement from the Minister of Justice that sent the willies up my spine when he told the House today—and I quote—“Penalties have no effect at all.”—penalties have no effect at all. If penalties have no effect at all, why does this Parliament say that those that commit murder must do life in prison? Why does this Parliament set down penalties for rape and for other criminal offences if we have a Minister of Justice who says that penalties do not matter, I say that the Minister of Justice is out of touch with New Zealanders. When we heard evidence at the select committee that for a substance like marijuana, which currently has a penalty of eight years, how can any member in this House say that two years for these far more dangerous substances is somehow just and is somehow fair?

I equally want to draw the House’s attention to the information that we heard at the select committee about the number of people that are presenting in accident and emergency clinics all over New Zealand from taking these substances. Yes, there have been 45 deaths in the last year, but there are literally hundreds and hundreds of cases that are coming before our accident and emergency clinics. And here’s the rub: if someone is a manufacturer and is making money out of peddling these substances—a single batch of these psychoactive substances could kill a dozen people; in fact, there’s evidence that some of the bad batches may have killed more than that many New Zealanders—how can any member of this House reasonably say that the maximum penalty for manufacturing and distributing those substances is a period of only two years? I do not think any member of this House could look in the mirror and say that that is a fair maximum penalty.

What we also observed with this bill were the huge contradictions within the Government in their approach to these sorts of law and order issues. On the one hand, we have the extreme positions of the Greens and the Labour Party opposing this bill, and we have another party within Government actually wanting to go further, from eight years to 14 years. Doesn’t that just describe so aptly the lack of direction?

No wonder justice policy in New Zealand is in a mess when you have got that level of disagreement within the Government parties on such a key area. Effectively, you’ve got some members in the Government parties—the Labour and the Green Party—defending having just two years for the manufacture and distribution of these substances, while you have another governing party saying that it should be 14 years. How can that in any way represent a coherent approach to justice and to these issues around the harm from psychoactive substances?

So members on this side of the House do not say that penalties being appropriate is the only part of the logical response that we as a country should be taking to these psychoactive substances. Of course we need to do more in the area of treatment, of course we need to do more in the work of customs, and of course we need to do more with our health and our drug rehabilitation services, but I say to this Parliament: if we are serious about stopping the ongoing tragedy of so many young people’s lives being lost, this Parliament needs to send a signal—a signal that we will lock up those people that make money out of peddling drugs that are causing so much harm in our community.

I strongly endorse the words of Simeon Brown and the work that he has done on this bill. I am absolutely delighted that we have the parliamentary numbers to ensure that this bill is passed, because it is time we took this problem seriously.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Can I firstly begin by acknowledging Simeon Brown. He’s actually been working on this kaupapa since June 2013. I wonder if he remembers when he was a member of Manurewa Local Board and Peter Dunne came and accepted a petition to stop a High Zone store in the middle of our community? So it is something that this member has been working on, and I want to acknowledge that.

What I now want to acknowledge, however, is actually the beginning of my colleague Nick Smith’s contribution tonight. In saying that, can I acknowledge everybody who was on the Justice Committee. I was not a member of the Justice Committee, so I didn’t get to hear from the 78 submitters. I just want to note that, of those, 64 were individual submitters, 14 were organisations, 18 supported. So 23 percent of those who submitted supported the legislation and 68 percent opposed, and there were 9 percent who were a little bit ambiguous.

But I do want to highlight who the 45 people who have died are, because, actually, in my community, the 45 people who have died are homeless people, Mr Nick Smith. They are the poor and they are the vulnerable. Unfortunately, in some communities, the people who have manufactured these products like to test them on people, and they’ve chosen to use my community as one of those test stops. And the other thing they do is they get these people who are addicted to these products to then sell them to their community. So I’m speaking about mine. I’ve had three people die in Manurewa, and they were homeless people. I didn’t hear from the parents and the families and the young people who were affected. If you look at definitions, we’re looking at party pills, legal highs, and then synthetic cannabis, and it’s the synthetic cannabis that seems to be killing a number of people who currently are affected by the availability of this substance.

Now, we can go back in history and look at the Psychoactive Substances Act, and the fact that in the principal Act we wanted to regulate these substances, so they’re not prohibited substances. We actually said, “We’re going to allow New Zealanders to purchase them.” And that’s the context within which this legislation should be viewed, because this is an amendment to the Psychoactive Substances Act—it’s an amendment bill. So that’s the Act that we are actually amending tonight. So what we’re saying is that we now want to treat a non-regulated, non-prohibited psychoactive substance as either a class C—in terms of this legislation; I’ve heard other colleagues say A—drug, and want to focus on punishment.

So I want to agree with my colleague Nick Smith that the people who will be punished—given they are the same people who have died—will be the poor and the vulnerable, and also, in my community, it is Māori, because, overwhelmingly, over 90 percent of them are Māori, and they are the homeless people living in my community.

So what did the submitters say that I particularly want to highlight? I actually want to highlight this whole theory that deterrence works. So if we put up these penalties, it’s going to stop people from—

💬 Hon Member: It’ll help stop.

Well, can I actually highlight what the bill says. Who is this bill going to affect? It’s going to increase the penalty for selling or supplying. I find it fascinating that if you look at the definition of trafficking, it talks about the preparation of a drug of dependence for distribution and it talks about manufacturing of an illegal drug. They aren’t the people that are targeted by this legislation. They are the people that are selling or supplying.

We know, from the police, that the people who are selling or supplying are actually those likely to use the substance. They are people with addictions. This is such a flawed piece of legislation, and I actually want to highlight what Peter Dunne said. He said that this is naive nonsense, and I agree with him 100 percent. So our focus as a Government absolutely has been on treating people who have an addiction, not sending them to jail for eight years, or 14, as I’ve heard tonight. That is a completely failed strategy if you want to actually address the issue. So why don’t you change it? You should have focused on the manufacturers.

Can I just say that I also want to highlight Massey University’s SHORE & Whariki, who, again, reinforced that all increasing penalties actually does is increase the number of people in prison. It does not reduce drug price, it does not reduce drug availability, and I agree with the New Zealand Medical Association: the big question we all should be asking ourselves is, how do we reduce demand? You do not reduce demand by penalising, in this case, the suppliers and sellers and making them go to prison for more time—oh, unless we’re going to, I guess, agree that it’s in prison that they’re going to get the health support that they need. So maybe that’s the irony and perversity of this piece of legislation: that, actually, by sending people there who we know are drug addicted, likely to be homeless, vulnerable, marginalised, Māori people, they’ll get into a system that actually will care for them and look after them. So let’s hope that there is a perverse consequence to this piece of legislation going through.

I’d also like to take the opportunity to highlight internationally this growing piece of research that I highlighted in terms of Massey University’s SHORE & Whariki’s perspective. Internationally, the evidence quite clearly now says we must focus on cultural attitudes about drug users and addictions. I’m anticipating that our mental health and addictions inquiry actually is going to highlight how substances are used by people who have mental health and addiction issues. What it will say is that people use drugs and alcohol to mediate and to moderate their mental health issues and that, actually, addictions are a symptom. So we need people to start acknowledging the fact that they have addictions and seek support.

That’s what we intend to do as a Government, and, quite clearly, that was articulated in the select committee report, because our main rationale for not supporting this piece of legislation is because, as a Government, we now philosophically believe in a health-based approach to drug use. We will not support punitive measures—deterrents that actually do not work. So I want to highlight how proud I was in the congruency of that philosophy that, when our Prime Minister was over in the UN, she did not sign the Global Call to Action on the World Drug Problem.

And can I just say, in highlighting that, there were particular elements of this call to action, and we’ve done quite a few of them, actually. We’ve strengthened international cooperation through the Maritime Powers Extension Bill. How do I know? I’m on the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee—it was a bill that we discussed. And, actually, it complimented—and I want to acknowledge my colleague the Hon Meka Whaitiri in the House—her Customs and Excise Bill, which colleague Tim Macindoe was also involved in, because, actually, it was creating a fit for purpose organisation that would be part of intercepting these drugs before they got here. It was absolutely about reducing supply.

So if you look at the whole framework, we know that we’ve got issues of supply, but, fundamentally, in our own country, the biggest issue is demand. So, from our perspective, we agree that we should develop a national action plan—and I want to reiterate—to reduce demand for illicit drugs. You know, Simon Bridges said he would have signed it. Well, this says we need to have a national action plan to reduce demand. That’s not sending addicts to prison, actually—which is what this bill is going to do. And so that’s why we will not support this piece of legislation. But what we do commit to—and I know my colleague the Hon David Clark is here in the House tonight—is implementing the recommendations that will come from our mental health and addictions inquiry that make sure that New Zealanders are getting the help they deserve and need, to reduce the demand for drugs in New Zealand. Kia ora.

E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I rise tonight to speak to the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill. To begin with, I would like to acknowledge the sponsor of this bill, Simeon Brown, who I’ve met with about the contents of this bill to discuss my concerns. My concerns are perhaps best summarised, in a nutshell, in reference to the point made by the Hon Dr Nick Smith about how this bill represents a practical measure to combat drug use and drug abuse, addiction, and harms. To that point, I would say that practical measures work. This bill will not work. This piece of legislation is contrary to all of the evidence, to every piece of advice that we know with regard to how we tackle drug harm that is currently rippling through our communities.

I want to acknowledge, to begin with, the loss of lives that have been experienced in communities throughout this country: the sons and daughters that have been mentioned, but so too those who are homeless and jobless and amongst the most vulnerable in our society, which the research and evidence and coroners’ reports show are typically the users of these synthetics.

I think that all politicians, fundamentally, want the same thing here. We want reduced harm, we want safer communities, and we want investment in solutions that will actually work. So I think it makes a whole lot of sense to unpack how we got here and into this mess to begin with. In the early 2010s, synthetic substances began to emerge on the market, and what Parliament found is that we could not legislate to keep up with emerging substances by using the flawed model of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975. In 2011, the Law Commission provided a deeply comprehensive report on the efficacy of that Misuse of Drugs Act 1975, and it recommended a complete repeal and replacement of the legislation, which was simply not working to reduce harm. It also recommended new regulations for emerging substances.

In 2013, the Psychoactive Substances Act, which this amendment bill would change, was passed unanimously in this House. It was heralded internationally as a world first to provide sensible regulation for new psychoactive substances, but that optimism quickly dwindled. It contained a provision in its original sections for the interim licensing of products that hadn’t yet been reported or complained about, but in May 2014, after the problem became visible as a result of the regulations that were imposed around that interim licensing, such as where they could be sold, politicians responded to moral panic, and all parties at the time, except for the 14 Green MPs in the House, voted for those interim licences to be revoked.

Speaking to that knee-jerk revocation of those licences, Kevin Hague, who is a former Green MP and health spokesperson, on the third reading of that Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill warned about what would happen, and I quote, “Prohibition takes supply out of the hands of regulated, controlled retailers and instead puts that supply into the hands of criminal gangs or other illicit suppliers. Unfortunately, what that means is that the drug dealer on the street in the alleyway behind the shop at Naenae and the drug dealer in the tinny house are not subject to those same controls. Those people supplying the demand that will not go away as a result of this bill tonight will not be checking people for their ID or for proof of age. We should expect that supply to people under age will increase as a result of this bill. Those people will not be making a distinction between those products that are low risk and those products that are high risk.

“We should expect that the supply of products that are high risk will increase as a result of this bill. Those people, those illicit drug dealers, will, in addition to having a range of psychoactive substances—those currently legal and those currently illegal—have, in another pocket, other drugs like methamphetamine. So the product of this bill will be that the demand, which will not go away as a result of this bill, … [will actually be increased]. We are going to be seeing a significant increase in harm.” And what did we see? We saw exactly what was foretold by Green MP Kevin Hague. We have seen the proliferation of psychoactive substances and their harm increase as a result of a lack of regulation. The chemicals have got nastier and cheaper to produce and throw together.

I want to quote here from a user from west Auckland who was interviewed by Vice Media, who stated, and I quote, “You get all these people addicted, like actually [expletive] addicted, and then you just take it away and [you] make it illegal? Of course it’s gonna go underground, and people are gonna start making [expletive] that is harmful.”

I also want to speak to the experience of the CEO of Lifewise, Moira Lawler, who is one of the providers of the Housing First model, which is often celebrated by many in this House as a perfect way to tackle homelessness by way of wraparound services. Moira, in relation to the synthetics crisis, stated, and I quote, “[We] had one of our whānau arrested and charged with dealing and one of the things the police said [which] really stuck [in my mind] was that their unit was full of coins. You don’t make your fortune dealing synthetics … [but] People use it because it’s all they can afford.”

We’ve also had the police submit on this bill, saying that they are not going to arrest their way out of it. We have had ample evidence, as has been quoted by previous speakers, such as from the likes of Massey’s SHORE & Whariki Research Centre, which states “Experience from overseas is that increasing penalties for drug trafficking increases convictions and prisoner numbers while [having only] a minimal impact on drug prices and availability.”

In 2017, when media reported that at least seven people had died from synthetic usage, former Prime Minister Bill English said it was an issue of personal responsibility and denied Government intervention was needed. That death toll from synthetic use rose to 25 in 2017, and now to 45 in 2018, and I am glad that the National Party has now changed their position from labelling this an issue of personal responsibility, because that is far too often an abdication of political responsibility.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Well, support the bill—support the bill.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Political responsibility, Dr Nick Smith, looks like the boldness to do what works.

On Monday of this week, I was at the opening of the harm reduction conference in Christchurch. It was timed to commemorate 30 years of needle exchange in New Zealand, which was introduced in 1987 by health Minister Dr Michael Bassett in the Lange Government. Due to that policy 30 years ago, New Zealand has a prevalence of HIV among those who inject drugs in New Zealand of 0.2 percent compared to 13 percent internationally. At the bill’s introduction, Dr Michael Bassett stated, “I do not think it is possible to have a perfect solution when the position is … a balance of awfulness.”

No one here is saying that drugs are cool or fun. What we are saying is that they exist and we have to deal with that. We have to reduce harm, and if we want to do something, why do we not do something that works? This entire system is broken, and we have known it for a very long time. We have known it because the evidence and the advice provided to politicians shows—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order!

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —that increasing penalties will not reduce drug accessibility—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Two years is inadequate.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Mr Smith.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —or affordability. We must treat drugs as a health issue, and that looks like taking them out of the shadows and providing regulation.

When people imagine regulation, they think of a free-for-all. They think of chaos. They think of bringing the issue into the light. But what we have right now in the shadows is chaos. Anybody anywhere in New Zealand who wants drugs can access them. Drug dealers, as was stated by Kevin Hague, are not checking ID, nor are they checking the safeness of the substances that they are flicking off. We know that arresting these dealers is only going to result in further dealers popping up, because the evidence shows it. So if we want to do something that works, we have to follow the evidence.

I understand this is a split call; the Hon Tim Macindoe.

Kia orana, Madam Assistant Speaker. There is so much that I disagree with as I’ve listened to the previous speaker, Chlöe Swarbrick, deliver, in a very articulate and passionate fashion, what I believe to be a fundamentally naive and misguided retort. But I simply ask her this: how many lives have to end?

Chlöe Swarbrick: Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order!

How many young people have to suffer—

Chlöe Swarbrick: Before we do what works?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order!

How many young people have to suffer the dreadful destruction—

Chlöe Swarbrick: You’re despicable.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order!

I am not despicable, Miss Swarbrick. I’m asking—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! I apologise to the member. I just want to call order. I called order when the previous speaker was being—there were interjections. So I would just ask for the same respect. This is a highly charged piece of legislation, and I know that emotions are running high. I just ask that we just come back into this place with some respect for those who are affected by this.

Absolutely. And it is out of respect for those families who have been utterly devastated by the consequences of this dreadful regime that we have at the moment that leads me to stand in support tonight of the measure that is being put forward by my colleague Simeon Brown, the MP for Pakuranga. I want to commend him for his initiative in bringing this bill forward, for his compassion, but, in particular—and I hope the member who has been criticising me and firing abuse at me is listening now—I want to commend his speech to her. It was measured, it was balanced, it was health- and evidence-based as much as it was sanctions-based, and I wonder if she even did him the courtesy of listening to it. I am very disappointed to hear that members of the Labour and Green parties will not support this bill, and I echo the concerns of the Hon Dr Nick Smith when he spoke earlier.

The sponsor of this bill has not claimed that this is a cure-all measure. He has not claimed that all of the problems that he’s trying to tackle will go away as a consequence of it. I didn’t have the opportunity to hear the submissions because I am not on the Justice Committee, but I do remember being a member of this House back in 2013 when MPs legislated, on the strong advice at the time of the police and the health authorities, the Psychoactive Substances Bill of that time—

Chlöe Swarbrick: And then you removed the interim.

—and we got caned for it.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Don’t bring the Speaker into the debate.

We got caned for it. In our electorates, I remember some of the most uncomfortable meetings I’ve ever been to as a constituency MP with those in my electorate, and hearing from my colleagues around the country, as the public said, “This is fundamentally flawed legislation.”

Synthetic drugs are highly addictive and extraordinarily dangerous. Accepting them from a dodgy supplier is akin to playing Russian roulette. My heart goes out to the victims of these drugs, as I’m sure all members would feel. As a parent, I can only imagine the anguish and the heartbreak of seeing a talented child of mine—or any talented youngster—succumb to the evil manipulation and callousness of those who peddle these substances. And the problem in what we heard previously is that it was not focusing on those who are peddling the drugs, but that’s what this bill is about. It is not about saying that somehow we’re going to cure all the problems of the victims; it’s about saying, “We must focus on those evil, cynical, manipulative, devious, life-destroying people who peddle these ghastly products.”

Increasing the penalties in itself will not stamp out all the problems; we know that. But for Labour and the Green MPs to suggest that tougher penalties will make no difference is fanciful and it shows a heartless indifference to the suffering of all who are victims either as naive purchasers or addicts or the family and friends of those victims. And I cannot understand or find any sympathy for those who are indifferent to their plight. So tonight, in the short time I have available, I’d like to commend Darroch Ball and the New Zealand First Party. I don’t often do that, but I thought that was a fine contribution from Mr Ball and I thank him for supporting this measure, and for the reasons that he outlined in doing that. I believe that New Zealanders will thank them for doing that. I believe that New Zealanders will thank this Parliament for taking this measure. I am absolutely confident that the families of the victims will thank us for passing this measure.

Just in the last year, 45 people have died after consuming psychoactive substance, and for the victims I feel nothing but sympathy—that is a health issue—but for those who peddle these substances, I have nothing but contempt, and we must throw the book at them.

There is significant agreement across the House on one thing: that New Zealand is confronted with an issue that is causing large-scale damage to our community. We agree on that. Where we don’t agree is on how we respond to the issue that we face. And here’s the difference: over here, we believe that you cannot address any drug issue in a piecemeal way, and it is ironic that the members opposite have used the word “naive” to talk about the previous member, because I believe it is naive simply to consider that supply control alone will cause this problem to be minimised, when the past has shown us, as we’ve heard tonight, that that has got us into this mess in the very first place.

We believe that you cannot address any issue around drugs with supply control alone. Any drug strategy around the world has three strong components: supply control, which this bill does; demand control, which looks at therapeutic and treatment; and harm reduction, which acknowledges that a level of drug use goes on and that that needs to be done in the safest way possible while we get people into support and treatment. These need to be done simultaneously—at the same time—in order for there to be any success in this space, and what this bill does is it pulls out just one, and that’s why it will fail just as the primary legislation failed in the past. Dealers, gangs, users, pushers, people who are homeless, people on the streets are part of the same problem. They are part of the same complex web, and the view that this can be pulled out as one issue—supply control—is naive and it will fail.

We should learn from the mistakes of the past. We should learn that there was an attempt in this House to regulate highs and that a moral panic that gave us cold feet and made a complete U-turn drove these drugs underground, created a black market, and made these substances far more harmful than they ever were when they were known as legal highs. And that is where the deaths occurred, that is where people lost their lives, and this bill is no different. It drives it further underground.

The last Government had the opportunity to completely overhaul the Misuse of Drugs Act. We had the Law Commission tasked, under the former Labour Government in 2007, to take a good look at that Act. In 2011, they reported back and the National Government refused to do anything on it. They carved out one simple Act—the Psychoactive Substances Act—and that is the reason we are in this mess today. They had the opportunity to do something, and if they had acted back then, we would not be standing here today discussing this mess that we’re confronted with now. In 2011, they did not do it, and that should have been done. By playing politics, it has just caused harm and further damage to our communities, and that is why this bill will not make any difference.

I sat on the Justice Committee and I heard submissions from 78 people, from 58 of those who were opposed, and I heard the stories of people who take these drugs every day because they have no hope, because they have nothing else going on, and it is a sad and debilitating place to be in this world. And by thinking about whether just increasing penalties is going to alleviate the lives of those people, it will not, because the truth is that as long as synthetics are cheaper than cannabis, people will continue to take them, and they will continue to die in New Zealand without that help.

The departmental report clearly acknowledges that increasing penalties do not provide a corresponding deterrent: “While there is strong evidence for the general deterrent power of a criminal justice system, increases in the severity of penalties do not necessarily produce a corresponding increase in deterrence.” And that is the truth. That is what the research shows us.

The political game that we must do something; that is the same push we hear from those members opposite—that we must do something; that push and that imperative; that quick ability. It gives you a photo in the paper, it gives you some quick political points, but it fails to understand and address those underlying problems—the underlying problems that are driving that. Addiction, poverty, and mental health: those are the issues that are contributing to this problem being around, and until those are addressed, we will continue to see people dying in New Zealand. It is not right that we can simply pull out and by changing it from two to eight years have any hope of trying to fix this issue. It digs us deeper into a hole and it plays politics with people’s lives and I refuse to support something that trivialises life in such a way.

Thank you. It’s a pleasure to speak on the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill. I’d like first of all to acknowledge my colleague Simeon Brown for launching this. He’s a bit of a legend in our group. And I’d also like to acknowledge the support—amongst several legends around here—of Darroch Ball and New Zealand First. I listened to Darroch’s contribution and it made a hell of a lot of sense, because what we’re talking about are the dealers; not the users. And I’ve heard some arguments coming from across the floor, talking about the users. But we’re talking about the people who peddle this.

So we’re here for the likes of 22-year-old Calum Jones, who died of consuming this drug last year, and I looked into his father’s eyes today and shook his hand, and I cannot imagine being in his situation. I have a 20-year-old son and I could not imagine being in a situation that Lewis finds himself in. So we’re here for him and we’re here for people like him. Now, the supplier of that drug that killed Calum was charged under the two-year penalty and, as Hon Andrew Little said, the judges never give the maximum except in extreme circumstances; so they’re guided by the maximum penalty of the offence that they’re charged with, and it only carries a maximum two-year penalty. So that offender got home detention for the death of Calum Jones—home detention. That’s gutting. It is absolutely gutting.

So the select commit couldn’t agree on putting this bill through, because half of them were Labour MPs—so there you go. So what we’re seeking to do—this is not brain surgery—we’re trying to increase the penalty from two years to eight years. Now, dealing in cannabis is an eight-year penalty. I don’t know of many people who have been killed directly by consuming cannabis; maybe indirectly from their actions but not directly. But this drug that they’re consuming can kill them, and it’s a two-year maximum penalty for a person who sells and deals the drug to these users. And we’re not talking about the users; the fine for using it is $500—no imprisonment at all. So we’re talking about the dealers. We’re here for Lewis Jones—that’s why we’re here.

Labour and the Greens oppose it—surprise, surprise. Soft on crime, open the door, let ’em all out—pure ideology. I was a front-line policeman for 14 years. I saw the victims of drug abuse on a daily basis. I saw the suffering first-hand. The argument that was put forward that the penalty is not a deterrent—well, I’ve heard from the mouths of criminals myself that penalties do deter them, because the crooks themselves have told me that.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: Not fixing the problem.

So what we’re saying is that this is not going to fix the problem. This is actually just one of the tools to fix the problem. This is just one of the tools. We’re not saying that increasing it from two years to eight years is actually going to fix the problem; we’re just saying it’s a tool.

It’s common sense to make these penalties proportionate to the harm that they cause, so at the very minimum it should be class C, like cannabis—it should be on that level—and I understand that there might be moves to make it even higher. Reclassifying meth as class A, where there are, obviously, serious penalties, actually did reduce harm in the community. It also gave police more powers—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: What did it do to supply? It shot up.

With all due respect to the Hon Andrew Little, I’ve heard him make some arguments across the House over a range of bills, and he doesn’t make a lot of sense a lot of the time.

So what we did was that in 2013, we brought the Psychoactive Substances Act in. At that time, the potency of these drugs was not at the level that they are at now. The drugs nowadays—these psychoactive drugs—are many times more potent than when that Act came in in 2013. Forty-five people have died in the last year from that. So, yes, we agree: we treat the users of this drug—we treat it as a health issue. We absolutely agree with you on that. This is where we go—that’s why it’s a $500 fine to consume it—but we still have to go after the people that peddle and deal with it and make money from it. So here you go.

So 965 individual synthetic drug-related call outs for St John Ambulance last year—965. Dr Paul Quigley of the Wellington Hospital emergency unit said that synthetic cannabis dealers should be charged with manslaughter. Another doctor said that there’s no guarantee that some of those affected by this bad batch of synthetic cannabis will survive, and Dr Margaret Wilsher, Chief Medical Officer for the Auckland District Health Board, said there has been a dramatic increase in the numbers of patients in A & E having consumed synthetic cannabis.

Literally, hundreds of these synthetic cannabinoids are available, and they change pretty rapidly, so it’s not the case of one particular compound being a problem. Some of them were found to be 85 times more potent than THC. Doing nothing is not an option. I accept there is a review coming up and there’ll be a wide-ranging look at the drug problem and how we deal with it, but just standing across the other side of the House and arguing to us that we’ll just keep it at two years, when we could put it up to eight years and at least match it with class C drugs makes sense—it just makes common sense.

So, again, I’d like to acknowledge my colleague Simeon Brown for bringing this bit of legislation to the House, and I would also like to acknowledge Lewis Jones and his family for coming down to Wellington today and for meeting with us earlier on and for backing Simeon Brown in this just cause. I commend this to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Look, there’s been a lot of passion in the House tonight on this issue, and I don’t want to diminish that passion from anybody who has spoken strongly about this issue that is so badly affecting our communities. I want to acknowledge anyone who’s listening to this debate or watching it or who is sitting in our House tonight who has had a personal experience and who has been harmed. This is a scourge. I think we all acknowledge that, and I also really want to acknowledge Simeon Brown for his passion and his determination, and acknowledge the fact that he, as a representative, has listened and is trying to do something about this scourge.

What I would say, though, is that we have been here in this House on this issue numerous times over the last decade, trying to address the terrible harm that is being caused in our communities—in 2013, in 2014, and we’re back here in 2018—and we haven’t got it right. None of us have got it right, and I really want to say that tonight because people are really passionate. There’s lots of anger on both sides and we haven’t got it right yet.

We need, as a group of representatives in our communities that listen to people, to meet with the families, whether it’s in the streets, whether it’s in their homes—I know I’ve been into the homes of families who have talked to me about the impact of how their children have changed absolutely. Their personality is changed by these drugs. They become people the family don’t recognise. They steal. They’ll do anything to get the money to purchase these drugs. These people are addicted. This is a fundamental health issue.

I’ve talked to toxicologists. I’ve met with toxicologists. I’ve met with people who have been affected. We know and we are representatives, and it’s up to us to come up with a better way to address these issues. We are more than representatives. We are legislators, and it’s up to us as a group, if we agree that this is a scourge, to come up with the best possible way to deal with these issues. An amendment to this legislation to increase penalties is not the way to deal with this issue.

I am hoping that there is agreement across the House—there does seem to be agreement, and I have listened to the whole debate tonight. I have been party to the debates over the years, and I haven’t got it right. I supported the legislation in 2013 to introduce a regulated approach. Then, as I think Tim Macindoe said, we were besieged by members of our community who were horrified that there were still legal places where people could go and purchase psychoactive substances, and we all came under incredible pressure. We all came under incredible pressure, and another amendment to that legislation was passed—under urgency, I think, wasn’t it?—in 2014, and I’ve got Tony Ryall’s statement in front of me tonight. The previous National Government was lauding the fact that that change was made and saying how it was going to make a difference, and then we heard Nick Smith tonight completely rewriting history, as if, somehow, Simeon Brown has come up with the way to deal with it. Well, the previous Government couldn’t get it right. The whole of the Parliament couldn’t get it right. We’re not going to get it right with an amendment to that legislation to increase penalties, which will not address the harmful health impacts and the drivers for these substances being on our streets.

So the upshot of that is the Labour Party cannot support this piece of legislation, but we want to work together to get it right. The intent of this, as I understand it, and I was reading the submission by the New Zealand Drug Foundation, which talks about how the intent of—and the select committee report talks about how the intent of the bill doesn’t even align with the intent of the principal Act, which means that not only is it not going to work but it’s actually a poor legislative approach. Simeon Brown, your intent is a good intent, but getting good law, doing our job as legislators and doing it well, should be the intent of the whole of this Parliament.

The intent of this bill—it’s not the right place for this amendment to occur, and the actual effect that it will have, as has been heard tonight, whether it was the Police Association, whether it’s the New Zealand Drug Foundation, talking about how addressing the supply side of drugs in this way is doomed to failure. They say that, theoretically, some suppliers may stop supplying certain products after penalties increase, but other suppliers with less to lose will inevitably fill the gaps. Supply will always step up to meet demand.

I think my colleague Andrew Little talked about how helping people who take the substances, holding those who supply it to account, and getting it off the streets is what we want to do as a Parliament. I think we’re all agreed on that, are we not? Does anyone in this Parliament disagree with that? No, we don’t, but by making an amendment to a piece of legislation to increase penalties when there is so much harm being done to people and when we are not addressing the health impacts is—and I think Nick Smith used the word “pathetic”. I describe that as a pathetic, inadequate measure that does not reflect well on us as representatives or as legislators.

But that does not mean that we can’t work together. We have a review of this piece of this legislation, the 2013 legislation, which I understand has been conducted. We have other measures being put in place. We have the inquiry into mental health and addiction, which has touched on the addiction to psychoactive substances—a major piece of work, which is about to land sometime in the next few months. Those are two really important things that together can help us provide real changes of substance to address the bigger issues. Why are we not waiting for that? Why have we not all, as a Parliament, agreed to work together to make sure that we’ve got the best suite of measures that will work together to deal with the whole issue rather than a small amendment aiming to raise penalties which will not address the fundamental issues? Then what we need to do is review the Misuse of Drugs Act, which is what the previous Government wouldn’t do.

Those things together will make change, and if we all agree to work together, then we will actually do our jobs for our communities as representatives and try to get the best legislative outcomes. They’re not all going to be legislative outcomes, because we need to address the health impacts. Those are the things that we need to do, and we need to do them together. I applaud Simeon Brown’s intent. I applaud the fact that he wants to take on these issues. Let’s all work together to try and make them work this time.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker, for the opportunity to speak to the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill. I start by acknowledging the member in whose name this bill is brought to Parliament—Simeon Brown—and also those who have supported its passage thus far, including victims; various campaigners in support of this proposed legislation including, in many cases, the victims themselves and their families; and other members of this House who have chosen to support this bill. I won’t be politically partisan, so I won’t be naming particular political parties in this, but I do acknowledge the good intent and ideals being displayed on many sides of this House tonight. But, certainly, some arguments I have considerably more sympathy with than others.

Taking the opportunity to perhaps wrap up some of the debate somewhat, if I may—being the final speaker—I’d like to touch on a few key distinctions that I think will help to clarify some of the impassioned arguments that we’ve heard back and forth tonight. A series of distinctions, as follows: the necessary versus the sufficient, suppliers versus users, justice versus health, perpetrators versus victims, other drugs as compared with psychoactive substances, and morality versus legality, along with deterrence versus prevention.

Touching on each of those briefly in turn, and to start with the necessary versus the sufficient, I don’t believe it’s been claimed by the author of this bill, or indeed others who are supporting it, that it is some kind of silver bullet. It’s not said to be the be all and end all of measures that are needed to attack the problem that we have in this nation, but, rather, simply one measure, and in that sense, it is something that we believe to be necessary albeit not entirely sufficient in itself.

The second is to acknowledge the distinction but also, at times, the area where suppliers and users do intersect, and I acknowledge the sophisticated argument and the experience on which Louisa Wall has based her remarks in that regard. I think—acknowledging that in cases where suppliers and users will be one and the same people—we’ve got the option either to carry on as we are, or perhaps to regard the opportunity to treat the matter seriously in a way that says that rehabilitation will be part of the time that they would spend detained so that they cannot incur further damage against themselves and others. So I understand there are philosophical differences in this House in that regard, but if we do regard the time that people who peddle these drugs and who also use it as an opportunity for rehabilitation not only in respect of that addiction but in other respects in which their lives are broken, whether it be lack of education, relationship breakdown, homelessness, and so forth, then I think we’ll be better off. So that is the approach, personally, that I would favour in that regard.

Justice versus health: well, it seems to me this is a false choice in that we do not need to choose entirely one or the other, and that relates, really, to the point regarding deterrence versus prevention. It was remarked by, I think, the Hon David Clark that the advice had been, at least from some submitters—including the Police Association, he said—that increasing the penalty will not have a deterrent effect for those who would supply these drugs. Well, that may or may not be true, but it is true that while behind bars, those who have been supplying the drug are prevented from doing so further, at least at that time. Of course, there is also the element of punishment, which is by no means the sole purpose of our criminal justice system, but it is at least one, as was acknowledged and highlighted by my colleague the Hon Mark Mitchell.

It seems to me that it would be artificial to regard a distinction between deaths caused by the supply of substances that are known to have the effects of ending life as different from other ways in which life can be ended, such that murder and manslaughter would be the result. So to increase penalties such that we have something of a level playing field in that regard has a certain logical ring to it.

Finally, I would just like to wrap up by challenging on a logical basis some of the comments made on the other side of the House about their belief that increasing penalties will not have a deterrent effect or, indeed, a preventative effect. Well, if that is the case, then I challenge those members to argue for—perhaps by way of Supplementary Order Paper later in this legislative process—actually reducing the current penalty, such that if two years’ imprisonment should not go to eight years, or indeed further, as I understand others might be proposing, then perhaps—

Chlöe Swarbrick: No, it’s that we need a different approach.

The different approach that the member advocates might be to actually reduce it further. So I look forward to that potential engagement, if that is the best approach that those members believe to be in the interests of our nation and in the interests of those who are caught up in this awful practice, and I join other members of the House on this side of the House, and, indeed, the others opposite who are supporting the bill, in commending this bill at its second reading to the House.