Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

This bill amends the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975. It is a bill about cultivation, cannabidiol, and compassion. We committed last year to improving access to medicinal cannabis as a Government, and the completion of this bill’s passage through the House is a key milestone in achieving our goal.

From the outset, I want to thank the submitters to the Health Committee, who presented many good ideas, sound suggestions, and thoughts about how the bill should be shaped. I want to thank also the parties of the Government for the suggestions that they brought to the table, many of which were in a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that came to the committee of the whole House and made some important changes to the bill before it completed its passage through the House.

I do specifically want to put on record my thanks to New Zealand First, and to Jenny Marcroft and her contribution in adding palliation to the bill. I also want to thank the Green Party, who made valuable policy suggestions around the timing of the regulations, to make sure that they were made a priority and completed within a year, and to ensure that seeds already established in New Zealand could be added to the scheme so that they were not unnecessarily excluded.

As I’ve said, this bill is an important step in making medicinal cannabis more accessible to those New Zealanders that need it. It introduces an exception and statutory defence for people eligible to receive palliation to possess and use illicit cannabis and to possess a cannabis utensil. That is a compassionate clause that allows people to access cannabis products in the final stages of life, as we move to establish a supply scheme that will make high-quality products of a specified nature more readily available and affordable for wider New Zealand. The bill itself provides a regulation-making power to enable the setting of standards that products manufactured, imported, or supplied under licence must meet as a part of that scheme about which I just spoke. It also deschedules cannabidiol so that it is no longer a controlled drug.

I do, again, want to put on record my thanks to the Health Committee and to the parties who made the changes that were implemented through Supplementary Order Paper 177. A key change that I want to say a little bit more about is the expansion of the eligibility for the exception and statutory defence provisions. The SOP removed the term “terminally ill with less than 12 months to live” and replaced it in the provisions with the term “palliation”, which is an approach that is about alleviating pain and suffering for a person with an advanced, progressive, life-limiting condition who is nearing the end of life.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! There just seems to be a lot of noise coming from this part. Can I just ask, if you want to have conversations, can you take them out? Sorry to interrupt.

We believe this is a better description of the group of patients that the compassionate provisions are intended to apply to.

This change is expected to increase the number of people covered by the exception to include up to 25,000 New Zealanders who may be suffering in the final stages of life. Of course, it’s unclear how many might choose to use illicit cannabis, but it is one more arrow in the quiver, as it were, for addressing the issue of pain in the final stages of life.

This bill means that people eligible for palliation will have an exemption in the Act to the charge of using cannabis, and it means that they won’t be prosecuted for using illicit cannabis. They will be able to get a doctor’s certificate to certify that they’re eligible for that exemption. Of course, if they don’t have a doctor’s certificate, they can get that retrospectively and, if they’re in a court of law, use that as a defence. This is a defence that’s written into the bill. It’s a compassionate approach for people nearing the end of life, where the usual concerns, of course, around product safety, quality, efficacy, and any long-term risks really are irrelevant.

The scheme itself that we’re introducing with the bill is currently being established. It will be overseen by an agency and will result in New Zealanders being able to get commercially manufactured products made right here in New Zealand to a quality standard that we would expect. That is likely to mean, when they’re made to that standard, that doctors will be more willing to prescribe them, because, of course, what doctors do is prescribe known products—products where they know what the interaction will be with other medicines they prescribe.

All stages of cultivation, production, and supply of medicinal cannabis will be licensed. The bill allows quality requirements to be set and regulations for products produced under this scheme, and that will ensure that products meet the necessary standards we would expect.

The bill also now includes a requirement that regulations be made no later than one year after this bill is passed into law. That gives a transparency around the time frame in which the provisions will be drafted for regulations, and it also makes it clear that the scheme is a priority for this Government. It continues to be something that has been a priority from the start. The original bill was introduced in our 100-day plan and now will be passed into law within one year.

In addition, we proposed an amendment to address the use of cannabis varieties that are already established in New Zealand, and we didn’t see that it was appropriate to exclude those varieties that are already established in our country. I thank the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand for bringing that to the table. The scheme will require all stages of cultivation and production to be licensed. There is no obvious reason to preclude varieties of cannabis that are established.

The ministry will release a paper on the scheme early next year. That will be open to public consultation. We think it’s important that those who are in the industry, those who are users, those who are consumers of products, and those with a wider interest be able to submit their views as the regulations are established, so that we get the highest quality scheme. Indeed, one of the criticisms we had of other proposals brought to the Parliament was that they didn’t have that wider test around them. That was part of the previous debate.

The misuse of drugs legislation already provides a framework for licensing the production of medicinal cannabis products. The scheme makes use of that existing framework and therefore does not add unnecessary extra compliance. We saw no need to do anything in that regard.

The ministry will develop the quality standards in consultation with experts, and we believe that’s the right way of doing things. I will be convening a medicinal cannabis oversight panel to provide feedback and expert advice on the development of the scheme, and I believe that’s entirely appropriate. It shouldn’t be politicians that set the terms for the scheme; it should be experts. So I’m very pleased to be convening that panel, which will include experts such as medical professionals and consumer and industry representation.

Today is a great day. This is the most progressive legislation that has ever been passed through this House for the supply and access to medicinal cannabis products. It’s about cultivation, cannabidiol, and compassion. I’m very proud to commend this bill to the House.

I don’t think I have spoken on a bill in this House this term. As leader of the Opposition—

💬 Hon Dr David Clark: Lazy.

As leader of the—well, we’ll get to lazy very soon because this is probably the laziest Minister with the laziest bill we’ve ever seen. But I wanted to come down today and speak on this bill as leader of the National Party to state our position incredibly clearly for the people of New Zealand, for the Kiwis out there who are watching and who have concern for this issue.

I want the people of New Zealand to be crystal clear. We have compassion on this side of the House. It’s not something that’s simply for that side of the House—that they think they have in their righteous virtue-signalling way. We have it over here too. We believe as a party, to an individual member—55 members of Parliament on this side of the House—in medicinal cannabis. I personally have met in my electorate office in Tauranga constituents who are terminally ill who want the ability legally to get medicinal cannabis through appropriate channels to deal with the pain that they have. I understand it. I get it. I have huge compassion for them.

Indeed, Dr Shane Reti, out of his own pocket—and can I say what a remarkable piece of work it is. He went offshore. He went to the United States. He sought out best practice on these issues and he got them. He put forward, and I’ll go through it shortly, the several things that we believe a scheme for medicinal cannabis must, to be remotely responsible, have in this land of ours. But I can only assume that through lazy, petty politics, that side of the House wouldn’t go with it. They literally put their hands over their eyes and passed this skeleton of a law that is grossly irresponsible. I fear, and there is nothing the Minister of Health has said today that tells me otherwise, that what in fact this bill is is decriminalisation of cannabis by stealth in this Parliament today.

The Minister is sitting there, he’s looking down, he doesn’t want to listen to this, but not a single thing he has said in this House over the passage of this bill says anything otherwise: that when this bill passes, when it is signed off by the Governor-General, loose-leaf cannabis will be able to be smoked in public in New Zealand. What do you call that? He’s shaking his head. That Minister has been asked these questions. He’s had the ability every single time he’s spoken to answer the basic questions, and he hasn’t done that. In fact, he’s all but confirmed it. I say to him: what will the police do when they’re outside a school and someone, under this legislation, is smoking cannabis? What will they do? Chlöe Swarbrick’s shaking her head. I’ll tell you what they’ll do. I don’t reckon they’ll do much at all, actually, because today that’s what this Parliament arguably—but certainly there’s been nothing to allay our concerns—has lazily and irresponsibly done in this House.

I also want to be clear about this point: on this side of the House, we are all up for a debate on the merits of decriminalisation of cannabis in this country. I think it’s a debate that New Zealand actually probably wants to have. They want to discuss the issues, they want to understand what it means, they want to weigh those issues, and they want, after that debate has been had—not before it—to have a referendum on the subject. But now, with this bill, I fear that the Minister, with no details and zero answers to basic questions on a responsible medicinal cannabis scheme, has ensured that the debate will be after the fact. The debate will be after we’ve had the issue come before this Parliament and dealt with by stealth—too late, not democratic.

I’ve already mentioned Dr Shane Reti. He’s done the work. He has gone through and, in a schema of several things, ensured that his scheme proposed in Supplementary Order Papers in this House would ensure medicinal cannabis products will be approved in the same way a medicine is approved by Medsafe—no loose-leaf cannabis products approved. Where’s any of that in the bill? It’s just not there. Medical practitioners will decide who should have access to a medicinal cannabis card which will certify them to buy medicinal cannabis products. Where’s anything about anything remotely approaching that? It’s not there, Dr David Clark. David Clark put his hands over his eyes and peaked through, took it to Cabinet, and didn’t deal with the hard questions.

Dr Shane Reti ensured that medicinal cannabis products will be pharmacist-only medicine and that cultivators and manufacturers must be licensed for commercial production. Licence holders and staff would be vetted to ensure that they’re fit and proper persons. There would be a licensing regime that would create a safe market for medicinal cannabis products. Cultivators and manufacturers would not be able to be located within 5 kilometres of residential land or within a kilometre of sensitive sites such as schools and wāhi tapu. There would be no advertising of medicinal cannabis products, and the Ministry of Health would be reviewing this every five years. They are sensible additions. Actually, even if they weren’t sensible—but they are—at least there would be some flesh on the bones of a law about cannabis that people could look at, and I say, in this case, have best practice. None of that is there. None of it is there, and that simply leaves questions in terms of every single part of this.

Can you imagine, while I’m on it—the bare bones of a law with no detail on it—the Cabinet discussion that day when Dr Clark went to Cabinet? It’s really emblematic of how this Government runs. Let’s say it was the Rt Hon Winston Peters—awake at that time—asking, “How does a terminally ill New Zealander get hold of medicinal cannabis?” No answers. “That’s their problem.”, probably said David Clark.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I’d ask the member to use the correct title: the Hon Dr David Clark.

The Hon Dr David Clark. Great question—no answers to the basic parts of this.

So I just have some basic questions on this. Here’s the question: when someone comes to a school to pick up their kids and they have a bag of loose leaf and they smoke some of it, where in this bill is that now illegal or unlawful or not part of the thing?

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Scaremongering.

No, no. Basic questions—basic questions on this. How does it interact with the smoke-free legislation? Where does it come from? There is no answer to that. I suggest it probably comes from the house closest to the powerline with the shoes thrown over the top of it. That’s all that’s there. And I say on behalf of this side of the House that we’re all for medicinal cannabis—we believe in it, and that’s the party position. On decriminalisation, there’ll be people who have a vast range of views. I’m against it; others won’t be. But the reality is here today that without the questions answered, I fear we’ve got decriminalisation by stealth.

I say to Shane Jones in my final few moments in this House: what did New Zealand First get in return? I know he agrees that this bill will do nothing to “get the nephs off the couch”. In fact, it very much legitimises the long-term, intergenerational, systemic problems that he agrees with this side of the House on. What has been gotten? Was it the piffling industrial changes that made no difference? Was it some other such deal that we haven’t heard? Nationalisation of ports, I hear someone say. Shame on the House for passing this terrible, unsafe, dangerous bill.

Tēnā koe, Te Māngai o Te Whare. Tēnā koutou katoa. It is my pleasure to speak at this third reading of the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill, and I do so as the chair of the Health Committee. I want to acknowledge my deputy chair, Dr Shane Reti, and the other members of the committee. I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate Minister Clark and also our New Zealand First colleagues, particularly Jenny Marcroft, and our Greens colleagues, particularly Chlöe Swarbrick. I think that the work the three of us, in terms of our coalition Government and our support partners, have undertaken, given that this bill was first read on 20 December 2017, to actually bring a bill before this Parliament in less than a year is incredibly well done—should I say—well done. I’d also like to take the opportunity to thank the officials from the Ministry of Health, and also the police and our Parliamentary Counsel Office. They served us incredibly well, and I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge that work.

The Health Committee actually worked incredibly hard on this piece of legislation, and, in fact, all up, there were seven amendments that we actually considered, five of which ended up being included in the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper, which we discussed at the committee stage of this bill. So I do want to acknowledge colleagues from across the House for their constructive engagement in that process. We wouldn’t have actually come up with those amendments unless we had put the effort in to try to make this bill the best bill that it could be.

I do need to highlight that this was part of the Government’s 100-day commitment, and, essentially, it was about improving access to medicinal cannabis. One of the things I want to put on record is that, actually, medicinal cannabis was available before this piece of legislation was brought to the House. The big issue was about what products were available. There is a product called Sativex, but it can cost up to $1,200 a month for people who need it. The issue that we were trying to address was actually one of supply, and this bill was very much about fairness. So was it fair for people who needed medicinal cannabis to have to pay $1,200 a month? Obviously no, and so, from our perspective, the other part of that process was creating a quality product that was also safe, and we proposed to do that through the development of a medicinal cannabis scheme.

Now, we’ve chosen to do that through the scheme not as an Act of Parliament but via regulation. What I want to highlight is that regulations are not actions of the House, and so, in fact, the process that the Minister has outlined is incredibly important because what it will enable is the medicinal cannabis advisory committee, for example, which will be created under this piece of legislation, which will include health professionals, manufacturers, suppliers, medicinal cannabis users, and, actually, from our submission and consultation process, Māori, who specifically wanted to be included in that group and also the disability sector. I do have to highlight that, philosophically, that is the big difference between the proposition from the Minister—that we are going to create a medicinal cannabis scheme via regulation—as opposed to the Opposition’s.

I do want to acknowledge Dr Shane Reti, who has proposed what would have been a piece of legislation that would have had all the components that we believe, actually, the public should have the ability to comment on. I do say to Dr Reti: given all that work that you’ve done, please make a submission, and I’m being genuine to that end, because I know that the work you have done has been incredibly valuable, and it can actually assist us as we move forward.

The other issue I wanted to highlight was that this bill was also about compassion. When we talk about compassion, it was a recognition that there are many people using cannabis for medicinal purposes that actually don’t have access to it, because, as I said before, we have one product and it’s $1,200 a month.

We did have 1,786 written submissions. Of those, we heard from 158 oral submitters. But I guess the most telling part, in terms of the debate about who should be exempt from prosecution—and the fact that the original proposition in this bill was that it should be people who are terminally ill with less than 12 months to live—was what we found from the 584 submitters who specifically wanted to talk about this exception and statutory defence provision: 174 of those submitters came to the committee because they were suffering from debilitating and chronic pain. We had 22 submitters who either experienced cancer or had loved ones who did. We had 16 submitters who had epilepsy. There were 17 submitters who experience multiple sclerosis. And there were also 74 submitters who actually said anybody should be able to have access or be exempt from prosecution if their doctor says that using medicinal cannabis is actually going to assist. So that discussion about who should be exempt from prosecution until we have a quality, safe, cheap, affordable product available did consume a lot of the time of the committee.

I just want to highlight, for people who are unsure of what we’re talking about, that if you’ve got a malignant condition, it’s mostly people who suffer from types of cancers. If it’s non-malignant, we’re actually talking about people who suffer from motor neuron disease. Now, 95 percent of people diagnosed will die within two to five years. We’re talking about people who have motor neuron disease, people who have Parkinson’s disease, people who have multiple sclerosis, and people who have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. So, the reality of this particular piece of legislation to members of our community, who we found out through the process are incredibly vulnerable, is something that I absolutely want to highlight, because these are the people who shared their stories—either their personal stories or they were there advocating on behalf of their loved ones. So can I say, from a select committee perspective, thank you for your generosity. Thank you for being so vulnerable, and I hope what you’ve seen actually is a response by the committee to your voices. I know that there were others who thought it should be a bit more broad, but I actually think that the exemption that can be provided by medical practitioners, doctors, and nurse practitioners actually provides scope for people who do have chronic conditions to fit if it is within a palliative regime.

I’d also like to highlight that the research about why medicinal cannabis is so important has started to come to the fore, and particularly I want to point to a piece of research from the European journal of international medicine which was released in May this year, which, essentially, says that medicinal cannabis for people who are suffering actually alleviates pain, and the alleviation of that pain means that people have gone from a pain scale of between eight and 10—for almost half of those in the study—to, after six months, only five percent of those people suffering that excruciating pain. It also means people can sleep, and it also means that people can eat.

I think the last point that I want to make, and it has been really underplayed from the beginning, is actually the economic opportunities that this whole medicinal cannabis scheme is going to create. I want to acknowledge Manu Caddie and Hikurangi Cannabis Co. and the whānau in Ruatōria because, actually, with Minister Jones in the House, I think that there are going to be economic development opportunities for the regions. The global market was valued at US$8.28 billion in 2017. The projections are that, by 2024, this industry is going to be worth US$28 billion, and I want to acknowledge that the reason that the industry is going to grow so much is that there has been an increased acknowledgment of the benefits of medicinal cannabis—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes, I would like the member to come back to the bill, please.

—and also the increased demand.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is actually not a wide debate.

So the bill will also enable cannabis cultivation licences to be issued for research purposes and, going back to my highlighting Hikurangi Cannabis Co., they’ve received one.

So I commend the bill to the House. Can I just say that, as a process, this was the first bill that our committee has seen through to fruition. I just again want to thank my colleagues for the way that we conducted ourselves in the committee. At the end of the day, we’re here to serve the people of New Zealand. Kia ora.

I would also like to acknowledge the chair of the Health Committee, because she did a tremendous job, and does a tremendous job. Actually, she’s a very effective Labour member of this House, and I am surprised she isn’t further up the totem pole. In, frankly, a shallow puddle of talent over there, I would have thought she was much, much higher ranked, but she certainly did a very good job, in sometimes trying circumstances, because the National caucus started, in good faith, in support of the goals of this bill.

There are three goals: the de-scheduling of cannabidiol, the terminal exemption—the temporary terminal exemption—from prosecution for those who are terminally ill, and the licensing framework. The National Party actually supports all three of those goals, and it’s a measure of the intellectual poverty inherent in this bill that despite being able to support those goals, it can’t support this bill.

As the Leader of the Opposition said, we’re also open to the idea of a conversation in this country about the decriminalising of cannabis more generally. Now, we need to tread very carefully through that—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Piker—piker.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

—because, depending on the way in which the conversation is articulated, we’ll have, I think, a very different outcome. So we do need to be cautious.

But the sad thing is we’ve actually started and ended that conversation, in a way, through the passage of this legislation. We have conflated the decriminalising of illicit substances with the licensing regime for medicinal cannabis, and that is to the shame of a lazy Government and a lazy Minister. Let’s go through this. Firstly—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: No plan B—no plan B.

—the temporary exemption from prosecution—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: I just remind the member, there is a Speakers’ ruling that interjection should be rare, reasonable, and witty, and none of those to date have met any one of those three tests. Sorry to interrupt the member.

The memory of H V Ross Robertson has just come back into the House.

💬 Hon Tim Macindoe: And a bit of “contagion” was required.

That’s quite right—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Actually, it was Braybrooke.

—especially the “witty” bit.

The temporary exemption from prosecution, when this bill is passed, is anything but temporary. The policy statement—the explanatory note—said that this exemption would only be in place until such time as an effective licensing regime and high-quality medicinal cannabis products were on the market. So it follows that there should be a sunset clause on that provision—no. The select committee discussed it. The committee of the whole House discussed it. The Minister rejected it. The Government rejected it. Why? Well, it’s open to speculation about whether the de facto decriminalising of illicit substances through the passage of this legislation is an accident or intended, and—without bringing the gallery in—I noticed the applause when the Leader of the Opposition suggested that was exactly what was happening when we pass this bill. What I describe as an island of immunity—

💬 Greg O’Connor: I thought it was his valedictory.

—in an archipelago of offending will cause no end of trouble for Mr O’Connor’s former colleagues in New Zealand Police, who came along and told us that they aren’t chasing and hunting down and arresting and jailing terminally ill people who have a joint for their pain. But they are interested in the supply chain, so look out for that.

The Minister and the Government still haven’t answered the question of what happens to somebody who’s terminally ill who smokes a joint outside a school or a shopping mall or a movie theatre. What are they going to do? Give them a pass under the Misuse of Drugs Act, but prosecute them under the Smoke-free Environment’s Act? I doubt it—I sincerely doubt it.

In fact, the member based in Invercargill, Dr Liz Craig, did the Minister’s work in committee by pointing out that the Government alternative to a sunset clause was a review: a review in two years, report back in three—on what? On what amendments to these provisions would be required? Not whether the provisions have gone past their sell-by date and should be repealed, in which case we’ve got to come back to this House and do just that because there is no sunset clause. No, it only talks about whatever amendments are necessary. The inference from that is that this is anything but a temporary exemption. So anybody who is terminally ill can smoke illicit substances till doomsday—well, till their doomsday, to put some gallows humour on to it.

Now, the licensing regime—the famous 59 words. We got a few more when we came out of the committee of the whole House, but a paucity of information about what that should be. The Minister’s response was twofold: “Look at section 37 of the Misuse of Drugs Act.” and “Trust us.”

So here are some questions that, at this very eleventh hour, we still don’t know the answers to. What will happen to somebody who wants to put a manufacturing process close to a school in the middle of a residential area? Will the manufacturing entity be an outside process or an indoor process? What is the fitness to hold the licence—no idea. Will it involve—this is crucial—loose leaf? Will that complete oxymoron of a medicine that is rolled up and smoked be allowed under the medicinal cannabis regime? Not the temporary exemption; not the terminal exemption.

💬 Louisa Wall: You’re obsessed about it.

And the Minister—oh, “obsessed”? The member says that I’m obsessed by this question. Well, I’m sorry; it’s a pretty fundamental question. Are we decriminalising loose-leaf cannabis use or not? Because I don’t know; I’m no doctor. Dr Reti can address this; Dr Craig could. But it seems to me that the smoking of what previously was an illicit substance for a chronic condition, and, bear in mind, we’re not talking about terminally ill once this licensing regime is in place; we’re talking about anybody who the GP or the doctor—the prescribing person—deems will benefit from this product, and the ingestion process is relevant. But no—not a dicky-bird on whether or not smoked loose leaf will be part of the licensing regime.

What manufacturing standards will be required for the people who hold the license? No idea—none whatsoever. Well, the answer to the question is, guess what? We’re going to set up another committee, a ministerial oversight group. So this was a high priority for the Government. It was in the 100-day plan. We’ve had a year to think about it and all of the detail is being delegated not only to officials but to another oversight group—add that to the 200-plus we’ve already got.

I have some significant concerns about the relationship between this change and our land transport rules and the effect that this will have on road safety, because while the principal change is a licensing framework, there is no doubt that the effect is the same, whether it’s illicit or prescribed, drugged driving is a massive risk on our road. If we have to look at the jurisdictions, I’m advised that in those jurisdictions where cannabis was decriminalised, deaths from drugged driving went up considerably, and in some jurisdictions are greater than alcohol harm on their roads, and that is going to come to a highway near us. Why? Because we haven’t even engaged transport officials on that crucial question. We haven’t engaged New Zealand Police per se about a test and whether there’s a high enough correlation between the presence of THC and evidence of impairment. It’s been a problem in illicit use. It’s not going to get any easier just because it’s prescribed.

Of course, we did have the nonsense of our—and, indeed, today, the combined select committees of health and Māori affairs have reported back to this House on its progress in achieving the goal of being smoke-free by 2025. Well, we can throw that goal completely out the window. Challenging though it was; it’s gone now.

💬 Louisa Wall: Why?

Because tobacco is deemed more harmful than cannabis. I feel like I’m in a parallel universe. It really is. The Government are about to outlaw smoking in cars with children, but it will be OK to take prescription cannabis. Where are we? What a complete schmozzle. I also want to add my thanks to those submitters, to those members of the medicinal cannabis industry, who are ready, willing, and able to create a safe, high-quality manufacturing process with exactly the sort of rules and boundaries—they want these rules and boundaries—that the Government is not prepared to say should be part of the regime. I wish them all the very best in developing that, and I hope they’re not going to do it in the sort of policy vacuum that exists as we pass this bill. It is bad law, and it should not proceed.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s a pleasure to stand on behalf of New Zealand First and take my call and put my contribution to the House on this, the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill. It is a pleasure to speak to this bill. I just would like to begin my contribution by thanking the Minister of Health, the Hon Dr David Clark, for working so cooperatively with New Zealand First on this bill. It was a pleasure for me to work with you, so I’d like to thank the Minister.

Also, thank you to the Health Committee for the work on this bill. I make note of the contribution of the chair of the committee, Louisa Wall, and also the deputy chair, Dr Shane Reti. I’ve just recently joined this committee, and it really is a pleasure to be a part of this group of very hard-working members. There were many submitters who spoke to this bill—many hundreds of submitters—and I feel that we heard you, and we have taken a step further than what was originally drafted. Also for laying bare your stories, your mamae, your stories of the pain and the suffering—and we really shouldn’t take that lightly. I acknowledge all of those who made their submissions, whether it was written or they had oral evidence submitted.

Hikurangi Enterprises—it’s been a pleasure to get to know Manu Caddie and to hear about their operation and what they hope for in terms of economic development for Ruatōria. So a thank you to him for helping me understand what they are trying to do inside of this.

Just commenting back to Louisa Wall’s contribution and the seven amendments that were made inside the Health Committee and the five making it to Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 177. A good amount of work was done in that process. Also too, Sativex, which she mentioned, is a product that is currently available by prescription, and it is, for some, extremely expensive and, therefore, out of reach for many people. Some people are having to pay around $1,200 per month to access this medicinal product. I have a friend. For his daughter, it costs him $500 a month, so that’s on perhaps the lower end and he can well afford it, but it is prohibitive for many. So we set out, as a Government, to make this product more readily available—a good, high-quality product—and easily accessible, because the price point was putting it out of reach for all New Zealanders.

Looking now at what the bill sets out to do, we did find, as a coalition, a common way forward together for our approach to medicinal cannabis. Now, those of us who have watched loved ones pass from the likes of cancer, as I have—I’ve watched my mother, who had breast cancer. It took four years for her to die. That was a long, long number of years to watch the pain and suffering, as eventually she was riddled with cancer. Also too a double whammy for me, because I had a foster mother who also passed from cancer, so I do understand from a personal, lived experience what it is like to watch that end-of-life phase—that process of someone dying in extreme pain, but slowly. And that’s the thing—it can take a very long time. So I’ll talk more to that, about why we added and did a language change around the palliation, in just a moment.

New Zealand First believes that the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill shows compassion to those who are dying in terrible pain, and this is why we support this legislation. Currently, yes, we’ve mentioned that there is a legal pathway for people to obtain medicinal cannabis products on prescription from a medical practitioner. However, as I’ve referenced already, access to affordable medicinal cannabis products is problematic for many New Zealanders. So, to address this, the Government agreed late last year—just a year ago—to introduce the medicinal cannabis scheme and to amend the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975.

So this bill sets out to do a few things—important things. It will introduce the exception and statutory defence for people in palliation to possess and use illicit cannabis and to possess a cannabis utensil, it will also provide a regulation-making power to enable the setting of standards that products manufactured, imported, or supplied under licence must meet, and also it will de-schedule cannabidiol—also referred to as CBD—so that it’s no longer a controlled drug.

The scheme will be overseen by an agency that will result in medicinal cannabis products being able to be commercially produced in New Zealand, and it will ensure that all medicinal cannabis products meet quality standards and that all stages of cultivation, production, and supply of medicinal cannabis will be licensed. So there’s going to be great oversight on it.

Looking now at what palliation is—and this is the language change that I referenced earlier. Originally, when the bill came into the House, it referenced “terminal illness” and people having less than 12 months to live would have that statutory defence. However, through SOP 177 from the Minister, we see that is now changed out to “palliation”, and this could affect up to around 25,000 people per year. So that’s extending it to a larger number of people who are suffering and dying in pain.

Looking at the World Health Organization definition of what is palliation: “Palliative care is an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problem associated with life-threatening illness,”. It will provide “relief from pain and other distressing symptoms;”, it “affirms life and regards dying as a normal process;”, it “intends neither to hasten or postpone death;”, it “offers a support system to help patients live as actively as possible until death;”, and it “offers a support system to help the family cope during the patient’s illness and in their own bereavement;”.

I mentioned earlier my mother, who died. It took four years for cancer to take her, and on pretty much her deathbed—she was in Rotorua Hospital by the end—my brother was with her. One of the final things she said was “Why does it take so long to die?”, and that’s a statement that is etched in my heart. It’s etched in my DNA. That is why we are very supportive of extending out the statutory defence for those who are in palliation. It does take a long time to die for some people, and we see that this is a compassionate response to those who need this.

So the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill, that we are passing here today, really is a collaborative work across these Government parties. Consensus was reached and, again, I’d like to acknowledge the Minister, the Hon Dr David Clark, for his efforts, and also too the Green Party member Chlöe Swarbrick for working constructively with us on this bill as well. So, finally, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is a historic day. Today, New Zealand commences down the path of cannabis reform. Today, cannabis reform in New Zealand will be led by David Clark as the Pied Piper, with, clearly, an empty music sheet. The Greens, dancing aimlessly around—they get cannabis legalisation, and New Zealand First slavishly bringing up the rear, trumped by the Greens and not understanding the harm they will do by agreeing to smoked loose-leaf cannabis in public.

New Zealanders overwhelmingly want medicinal cannabis as another tool in the tool box, as another medicine to ease their suffering. They want a high-quality medicine that is medicinal cannabis. However, New Zealanders did not sign up and are not signing up to cannabis legalisation by stealth. The referendum is the forum for that. Two schemes are created by this bill: a temporary and a permanent medicinal cannabis scheme. The temporary scheme is presented as a compassionate measure for people who have progressive disease, debilitating disease, chronic disease, and near end of life.

Unfortunately, it falls far wide from the mark from what it seeks to do. The temporary scheme is a rushed scheme where politicians have decided which conditions are in and out. This should be left to doctors and experts, not politicians, and in our hands we would do this. This is a rushed scheme that Medical Cannabis Awareness New Zealand says will not provide relief for people with severe, debilitating conditions like Dravet syndrome. This is a rushed scheme where procurement is illegal but possession is legal. In what other legislation do we turn such a blind eye to illegal actions, and, worse, that it should be a drug-related blind eye? The temporary scheme is a rushed scheme that will take some time to set up as a permanent scheme. We could’ve helped with that. With our legislation, we could’ve hurried it along. In fact, I’d contend that we could have the full medicinal cannabis scheme up in the same time it will take to enact and enable the temporary scheme. My predictions for the temporary scheme are these: (1) doctors will find the criteria hard to apply and will not participate, (2) police will struggle mightily to determine who can and who cannot legitimately use cannabis, and (3) the workflow will be unworkable for doctors and police.

The second part of the scheme is the permanent medicinal cannabis scheme. The only thing we know about this scheme is that it will allow the smoking of loose-leaf cannabis in public. We oppose this and deride the lack of details. Talking to the lack of details, an army of workers at the ministry—no details, no framework, no skeleton; just leave it to unnamed officials to work it out over the next few years. No, we will not do that. The National Party will not do that.

Medicinal cannabis is a sensitive issue that demands parliamentary oversight, industry feedback, and community consultation. Unfortunately, there is nothing to oversee, nothing for industry to talk to, and no community consultation on an empty scheme. How is industry supposed to move forward without details? How are prescribers to update and manage workflow without details? How are dispensers to change their work environment without details? We offered a plan. Our bill provided all these details, which we were happy to share, but the Government said no.

The smoking of loose-leaf cannabis is cannabis legalisation by stealth, and there is no question that it is in this bill. Both in written questions and in the committee of the whole House, the Minister of Health was specifically asked these questions, to which he replied, “The bill will not limit the form that cannabis will be dispensed in.” Clearly, loose leaf is in the temporary scheme and in the permanent scheme. Loose leaf is not a medicine. We oppose the smoking of loose leaf. We oppose the smoking of loose leaf in public. We offered in committee, again, the Minister the opportunity to at least restrict the smoking of loose leaf so that it didn’t occur in public. He was not interested in that. We oppose the normalisation of loose leaf in New Zealand society, and we oppose the lack of quality and safety with loose leaf. I say again: loose leaf is not a medicine.

We offered a plan: a licensing regime for cultivation, processing, and manufacture; a licensing regime that describes fit and proper persons; a licensing regime that said no to growing cannabis close to residential areas; a licensing regime that treated medicinal cannabis as just another Medsafe medicine with stage 0, 1, and 2 clinical trials and fast-track approvals. We offered a prescribing regime where doctors and nurses decide eligibility and not politicians, where medicinal cannabis is a medicine based on science and therapeutic benefit. We offered a dispensing plan where medicines are treated as pharmacy-only medicines and dispensed by pharmacists, as happens in the US. We offered certainty. We created a framework for affordability and accessibility, and this Government said no. Their egos could not get them past the media statements that said our bill is clearly better than the Government’s and that the Government’s bill was legislative laziness. As a consequence, we have before us today a bill that legalises cannabis and is empty of detail.

Here are my predictions: (1) loose-leaf cannabis will be smoked in public under the guise of medical need; (2) an already horrendously delayed medicinal cannabis scheme will not be deployed for several years—the regulations may have a one-year requirement for enactment, but deployment will take much longer—(3) while we wait for the details, New Zealand’s fledgling cannabis industry will lose market share to Australia, and some will go under; (4) GPs will have no part of a medicinal cannabis scheme that is not based on sound science and therapeutic benefit; (5) GPs will have no part of a medicinal cannabis scheme that takes no account of their workflow; and, finally, (6) police will have substantial challenges monitoring casual cannabis use from medical need.

Exactly what mandate does the coalition Government have to legalise cannabis? This is the province of a referendum, not back-door legislation pretending to be medical need. What is not collaborated and bipartisan runs the risk of being undone by future Governments. We sought to collaborate. We placed all our work out into public domain for scrutiny and comment. We met several times with Chlöe Swarbrick from the Greens, and I thank her for that collaboration. We met with New Zealand First and pointed out our concerns with smoked loose-leaf cannabis.

Be in no doubt, then, that today the Greens are legalising cannabis by stealth. New Zealand First are allowing the smoking of loose-leaf cannabis. Drug addiction services in Kaikohe and Kaitāia, remember: New Zealand First agreed to smoked loose leaf in your communities, and Labour are tick-boxing a 100-day election promise to placate the Greens. Today, then, the Greens trump New Zealand First. The Greens have hoodwinked New Zealand First into allowing the smoking of loose-leaf cannabis in public, and they will all answer to the electorate for that.

I want to conclude by thanking the National Party and the National Party caucus for understanding the need for a comprehensive, quality medicinal cannabis scheme, and for their support. As independent commentators have noted, this is a big step for the National Party, and together we took that step with dignity, precision, and hard work.

Finally then, the work we have done on our bill is informed by best practice from a number of people and a number of organisations who I’d like to acknowledge. I’d like to acknowledge from Massachusetts, Health Commissioner Kay Doyle and David Blakeman, from New Hampshire, Senator Jeff Woodburn and Health Commissioner Emeritus Nick Toumpas; from Colorado the Director of Marijuana Co-ordination Emeritus, Andrew Freedman; in New York Dr Howard Zucker, the Commissioner of Health, and his medicinal Cannabis team; more locally, the Pharmacy Guild of New Zealand and the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners. I’d like to thank Shane Le Brun from Medicinal Cannabis Awareness New Zealand for his wisdom in consultation and in helping us understand better some of the finer details of this legislation. Finally, I’d like to acknowledge Sarah Gwynn from the drafting office for exemplary work and attention to detail.

And so, today this Government is legalising cannabis by stealth. Let us take great care. Thank you.

Before I call the next speaker, can I just remind the member who’s resumed their seat of the Speaker’s ruling around reading of speeches. I didn’t interrupt, but this is a debating chamber and the Speaker has made it quite clear he expects people not to read their speeches.

E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. It’s news to me that the Greens are legalising cannabis by stealth. We actually have a confidence and supply commitment to do exactly that by way of referenda, in which we can expect and hope a positive public outcome occurs. But on 31 January earlier this year, I opened the debate on my—formerly the Hon Julie Anne Genter’s—medicinal cannabis member’s bill, and at that reading I said, “Surely, the point of our laws is to keep people safe and to prevent them from suffering. Where people are already suffering, it is to ensure that they get access to help or relief. So what happens when the law itself is responsible for suffering and prevents people’s access to that help or relief? I believe it is Parliament’s moral obligation to change that law, or at the very least, to be brave enough to listen to those who it is hurting—to open our hearts and our minds. This bill is about how we treat our sick. It is about what happens to all of us when we find ourselves sick. It is about the help that we as a society can give and the help that we deny.”

Now, nearly 11 months later, we are finally closer than New Zealand Parliament has ever been to a legal medicinal cannabis scheme. I want to acknowledge the patients and campaigners, many of whom are in the gallery today, who have spoken actually of their dismay, who’ve said that this is not enough. I want to let them know that this represents a starting point. This represents parliamentary consensus of what this time last year was seen as radical, unfathomable change. This is the closest our Parliament has ever been to this point. Today is historic and it is for you. In approximately an hour—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I don’t think it’s for me.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: No, Madam Deputy Speaker, it’s for the people in the gallery who I was addressing, but in approximately an hour—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Actually, you’re addressing me.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker. I would address that to the people in the gallery. So in approximately an hour, this bill will pass with a parliamentary majority. After that, it will receive Royal assent, and, from that moment, people who are in palliative care will no longer be turned into criminals for accessing medicinal cannabis. From that moment, the clock will start to tick on a strict 12 month time frame to develop and implement regulations for licensing, production, import, export, prescription, possession, and consumption of medicinal cannabis. And subsequent to the passage of this bill, the public can expect to be consulted with on the development of the regulations, as has been pointed out by the Minister of Health, Dr David Clark.

We have negotiated collaboratively and creatively with both Labour and New Zealand First to achieve that progress for the extension of the criminal defence from terminal illness to palliative care and for the time frame of regulatory development of no more than 12 months. We recognise that patients and their friends and whānau have been waiting for far too long.

We have also worked to see the inclusion of native strains of cannabis and local regulations to be developed. It is with a sense of hilarity that most people realise that despite Ministry of Health data providing ample evidence that approximately hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders are using cannabis on an annual basis, technically cannabis doesn’t legally exist in New Zealand. So to ensure that we create a common-sense framework for legal medicinal cannabis in Aotearoa New Zealand, we will provide a mechanism to fold those local strains into these regulations.

So that is the technical detail, but what does any of that actually mean in practice? Well, I think it is summarised well in an email I received on Friday last week from Emma Helleur: “Today it is my little brother’s 21st birthday. He has been bedridden for the past five months and is slowly and painfully dying. All of the morphine, fentanyl, and painkillers in the world don’t make him feel as calm as the cannabis. His doctors told my parents to get it and now my parents frequently and expensively have to source weed so he’s not in a horrific amount of pain 24 hours a day. And now on his 21st birthday he is dying an incredibly slow and painful death. He will suffer every single moment until his lifelong illness takes him. As his family, we have to stand by and watch him cry because he can hardly move. He can’t even pick up a bottle of water. And this is how he is spending his last days. I would give anything to end his suffering. So I wanted to say thank you. It’s too late for us to do anything about Jacob’s situation, but I hope that in the future no other sisters, mums, dads, or brothers have to stand by and watch somebody that they love suffer.”

I believe that thank you from Emma extends to all of the parliamentarians who have taken off their tribal stripes and come to the table to respectfully and compassionately discuss and progress this issue. That thank you extends to the staunch and tireless campaigners who have extended and placed facts and figures in front of MP after MP after MP in Parliament after Parliament after Parliament. Thank you to the thousands of New Zealanders and hundreds who came before the Health Committee armed with research, who opened their worlds and shared their stories, who organised and advocated for those who couldn’t make it out of the hospital bed or who couldn’t speak words of their pain in front of the characteristically formal and, may I say, sometimes quite frightening select committee process.

I am sorry that we could not make this bill everything that you wanted it to be. We never could. Whilst this is the most that we have managed to shift Parliament’s sentiment on this issue in decades, we’re still far behind other jurisdictions and the public support far outpaced parliamentary action. So today, I am calling on all of those who campaigned and fought to see this happen to not give up on the process. In the future, it should not take Parliament this long to act on the evidence nor with compassion. But it will only happen if New Zealanders continue to push and prod their parliamentarians along. We are accountable to all New Zealanders.

I have a vision for a local medicinal cannabis scheme in Aotearoa which provides us with an opportunity to move away from a reliance on big business, overseas pharmaceuticals. It’s not spurred by moral panic or a fear of anything that isn’t cut or pressed in a lab but informed by evidence in the developing research. It opens up a market that allows those who have been targeted and penalised disproportionately under the war on drugs to use their skills to retrain and to contribute to society. It provides an opportunity to communities throughout regional New Zealand to not just stabilise unsustainable economic decline but to flourish on their own terms. That ability to delve into research and development should not be overlooked, and neither should specialist education. Iwi-led Hikurangi Enterprises, the first company in New Zealand to be granted a medicinal cannabis licence, has worked with local polytech Eastern Institute of Technology in Ruatōria to adapt a horticultural course into a hemp one, and in turn has produced a hugely oversubscribed polytech programme—one of the only polytech programmes in the country, I might add, that is not currently experiencing enrolment decline but an explosion of interest.

Finally, I just want to address the floating red herring in the medicinal cannabis debate: it’s the fear that we have about people getting high. It is the oversimplified lens that we put on cannabidiol’s pain-minimising properties and THC’s psychoactive properties. What exactly do we think that prescription opioids do, except to reduce pain and induce psychoactive responses, not to mention come with much higher risk of addiction, overdose, and negative side effects? No one here is saying that cannabis does not come with harm—that would be irresponsible. Though, what we are saying is that to minimise that harm, we have to recognise that an illegal substance is exactly the opposite of a controlled substance. We get that control through regulation, and the medical profession, we believe, is far better placed to figure out what they should be prescribing than some folks in comfy armchairs in an ivory chamber.

Finally, I just want to say my thanks to all of the staunch campaigners and advocates in the gallery this afternoon. I want to say thank you to former Green MPs who fought long and hard for this issue far before I came before this Chamber, and I want to thank our incredible Green parliamentary advisers, Holly Donald and Ralph Hall. We are incredibly proud to be progressing this legislation today. Kia ora.

It’s my pleasure to stand and talk to this Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill at its third reading, but I am so very, very disappointed with this bill, and I know that many others are as well, because, in a nutshell, Labour campaigned on establishing a medicinal cannabis regime. I’d like to quote: “We support legalising cannabis products for medicinal use, and we are very clear about that, and will be pleased to do that in our first hundred days.” So we expected that they would have done the work. We expected that, after nine years, they would have done the work to make sure they could introduce a medicinal cannabis scheme, but this bill doesn’t even attempt it; it doesn’t come close. However, and fortunately, National, under Dr Shane Reti, has done the work, and his medicinal cannabis bill is ready and available to go.

Let me explain: all this bill that we’re debating today provides is a temporary statutory defence against prosecution if a patient uses and possesses cannabis—a patient who is very, very ill and close to dying. That’s not what the campaign brochure said. That’s not the well-thought-out, safe, and respected medicinal cannabis scheme that we were expecting. I too add to the other members who’ve spoken in this House to thank the submitters who came to the Health Committee. We really appreciated their candid knowledge and experience and the way that they shared with us. Most submitters—and there were nearly 2,000 of them—and, actually, I think, most New Zealanders want something more from this legislation. They are keen to see affordable medicinal cannabis products supplied to those who are ill, who are in pain, and who have medical conditions that will benefit from the substance. To do that safely and well, it means we need to access a supply of pharmaceutical-quality drugs and in consistent, quantity-controlled doses. They want these drugs to be cost-effective and available under medical supervision and from a legal source. This bill will do none of that.

The Government says that this bill is about compassion; I’m not so sure. It doesn’t guarantee supply. Very ill people will have to source their drugs from illegal sources. How compassionate is that? There’s no quality control. The illegal substances could be almost anything, including loose-leaf cannabis, which is uncontrollable and, actually, not great for your lungs. How compassionate is that? I’d like to repeat what Dr Shane Reti says: loose leaf is not a medicine—loose leaf is not a medicine. Forget about the product, the smoking’s going to do you harm anyway. Affordable cannabis drugs will not be available by prescription, and if the patient is too ill to negotiate with drug dealers themselves and needs a friend or a family member—and we’ve just heard a story from the member Chlöe Swarbrick about that—to source cannabis for them, that person can be prosecuted. How compassionate is that? This bill is a farce, actually.

Now, the National Party believes that creating a medicinal cannabis scheme requires careful thought, detailed technical advice, and, because it is a significant social change in our community, oversight through the parliamentary process. We are keen to see a medicinal cannabis scheme in action, and we were really happy to work with the select committee to make that happen. When we rolled up our sleeves to get on with the job, we even found a way, through the select committee process, to let work begin on designing the scheme, but Labour refused—absolutely refused—to discuss any details. They prefer to delegate and, we would say, abdicate their responsibilities to officials. Actually, we don’t really know why. We can’t see any downside to Parliament having the final oversight on our medicinal cannabis scheme. It’s a complex piece of work. There are opportunities, but there are also threats, and we need to manage that well.

There are several parts of any prospective legislation. We need standards around the products themselves—not in this bill. We need regulation about how those products can be grown, processed, and manufactured safely and securely—not here. We need decisions about who can prescribe and who can dispense the final product—not here. The Government hasn’t done any—not any—of this work, and it’s expecting to take another 12 months for the officials to write something, and that’s what’s so disappointing: it’s an opportunity lost.

Fortunately, as I said, National’s own Dr Shane Reti has been studying medicinal cannabis for some time. He’s travelled extensively, he’s looked at overseas regimes, and he’s produced a thoughtful, sensible, and, most of all, comprehensive medical cannabis bill. We’ve offered to assist the Government, and it could be debated right now. Submitters that we heard from, particularly patients and potential patients, were very keen to see this medicinal cannabis regime set up as quickly as possible. There are opportunities for the medicinal cannabis industry to be developed in New Zealand, and there’s some urgency to get that under way. And Dr Reti’s bill is ready to go.

So, in summary, the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill is too little, and it will be too late for so many of our submitters and our potential medicinal cannabis industry. National can’t support that. However, I do commend to the House Dr Reti’s Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill (No 2). It’s the solution that New Zealand needs right now and, as I said, it’s ready to go. So come on, Minister Clark, do the intelligent thing. National has provided a solution that can deliver on your promises so that New Zealanders can get the medicinal cannabis scheme they want. You only need to swallow your pride just a little bit and we could get a win-win for everybody. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Gosh, isn’t it amazing? Nine long years—Dr Shane Reti spends a few months and he comes up with a solution. Where were the Opposition, when they were in Government for those nine long years, talking about how evil this drug was—how evil it was?

It’s a pleasure to take a call on the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill. It’s a real pleasure because I believe that this is what the community has been asking for, and also what we made a promise about, and we’ve kept our promise.

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Promise-keepers.

Promise-keepers—absolutely. Look, I would really like to thank the submitters, and I have spoken in this House before about how harrowing some of those stories were, and also how gracious those people were to share those stories with us—their stories of pain and anguish and illness, and about how amazing medicinal cannabis was for those people.

I want to also acknowledge and talk about one of the things that I am particularly pleased about, which is the extension. The original definition that we had was that people were able to access medicinal cannabis with THC in it if they had less than 12 months to live. We had some submitters who talked to us about when they are in that situation where they have a terminal illness, they don’t like to limit themselves by saying that it’s going to be less than 12 months that they are going to live. So it caused a real barrier for people, and rightly so: when you’re fighting for your life, people do not want to say that they have less than 12 months to live. So I’m really pleased that we have had an extension into palliative care, which will increase people’s ability to use cannabis and utensils without fear of conviction—a defence, if you will.

Now, if those people choose to smoke, good on them—good on them. They’re in palliative care. That is very, very different from just saying, “Help yourself to a big fat doobie someday.”

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Well, that’s what you’re saying.

No, I’m not saying that, Mr Smith. What I would like to say is they have the ability to use and access that product in whatever way gives them comfort and use—a lot of people in Nelson.

What I would also like to say is that while the stories were often very traumatic, there was one very light moment, and I wanted to just raise this, because I think it’s important that we keep our sense of humour at times. I asked the question, having come from Northland, what “fruit” and “flowers” were, and I had this young chap jump up. He has a licence to carry hemp. He comes rushing to the table and points out to me what flowers and fruit are. Now, flowers and fruit, for those people who come from Northland—that is bud and seed. It was very interesting to have that description and to talk about the fact that this was not a product—was not a product—that was going to get someone high; it had less than 2 percent THC in it, and therefore I was able to be instructed.

This bill provides an exemption and a statutory defence. It provides a regulation-making power to enable the setting of the standards, and it deschedules cannabinoid—CBD. I think that this is the beginning of a conversation that we are mature enough to have in this country, and I am pleased to commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to take a call on the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill—one of the most regressive bills that this Parliament has ever done.

Firstly, I’d like to take a moment to talk about what this bill actually does. This bill is decriminalisation of cannabis by stealth, and one only needs to look up into the gallery to see the former leader of the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party, Michael Appleby, to actually realise that that is the purpose of this bill. It is about legalising cannabis by stealth. This bill is not about trying to set up a regulation regime for medicinal cannabis; this is about legalising cannabis by stealth, rather than leaving that decision to the people of New Zealand, who should be the ones who make the decision around whether we should be legalising cannabis or not.

I’d like to point out that this bill includes no regulation—no regulation whatsoever. This bill doesn’t talk about who can apply for a licence. It doesn’t talk about who can be granted a licence. It doesn’t talk about the eligibility of people who can apply for a licence or the suitability of individuals or corporate bodies who should be able to apply for a licence. It doesn’t talk about safety of locations for licences. It doesn’t talk about restrictions of areas about where you can have licences or where you can produce cannabis. It doesn’t talk about the issuing or the duration of licences. It doesn’t talk about the suitable people who should be involved, the storage, or the undertaking of activities in specified locations. It doesn’t talk about anything. This bill does not have any regulation, but hands that over to another working group, which this Government likes. This 201st working group that this Government has appointed is on medicinal cannabis and it does nothing but legalise cannabis by stealth.

Secondly, this bill is not about medicine. Smoking is not a medicine. As a country, we are pursuing smoke-free 2025, but this bill legalises cannabis to be smoked outside the school gates, outside the social centres, and outside the places where people who are seeking help from addiction services—people are able to smoke cannabis outside those places. I think of all the places up and down our country who are providing amazing services—addiction support, and trying to help those to get off drugs—and this bill does not stop people from smoking cannabis outside those premises. I think that’s a real shame and something this Government has failed to even take into account when looking into this issue.

This bill is not about medicine. Medicine is tested. Medicine goes through a pharmaceutical process. Medicine is prescribed by doctors. It is approved by Medsafe. This bill does not include any of those elements. This bill is empty of all of those elements. This bill is not about medicine; this bill, again, is about legalising cannabis and decriminalising cannabis by stealth, which is, as Chlöe Swarbrick and other members have said, the ultimate aim and what they are trying to do. But let’s be honest. Let’s have that honest conversation as a country. Let’s not try and put that under the guise of something with the use of the word “medicine”.

Thirdly, this bill does not acknowledge the harm of cannabis that is caused in our community. Last year, 432 individuals were hospitalised in New Zealand for behavioural and mental disorders from smoking cannabis—432 people were hospitalised with behavioural and mental disorders from use of cannabis just last year. Seventy-nine people were hospitalised from poisoning from using cannabis just last year. This bill does not take into account the real harm being caused in our communities—the harm which our hospital system has to deal with and grapple with. It does not look into the harm that is caused to children by cannabis and by poisoning from cannabis, and instead it decides to, essentially, open up the floodgates without a proper conversation and give the power to a working group so that they can set up some regulations over the next year. But, essentially, it decriminalises the use of cannabis for personal possession and personal use, without there being a proper conversation, using the guise of medicine when it is not. I stand opposed to this piece of legislation. Thank you.

I call Dr Liz Craig. This is a split call. You have five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Today is a really big milestone, not only for the Health Committee that heard the submissions on this bill but for all of those who shared their stories for us. What I want to be really clear about is that this bill is not about the de facto decriminalisation of illicit cannabis use, as asserted by members opposite; it’s actually about ensuring that those who are suffering can access medical cannabis on prescription.

What I want to talk about briefly is just what people told us in that select committee process, because many people came and shared their stories—many people with really severe arthritis, basically suffering from intractable epilepsy, in chronic pain. What they were telling us was that their current medication just wasn’t relieving their symptoms and that they were getting some relief from medicinal cannabis. They were also telling us that if they could access medicinal cannabis on prescription, it was really, really expensive—many families paying over $1,000 a month just for their child or themselves to get that relief. For those who couldn’t access that, it was really difficult to access in other ways.

One of the other things that people talked about was the need for the scope of that exemption to be widened beyond those just with a terminal illness with less than a year to live. But we also received some advice about how much we could broaden that scope, because I think the sense is that if you are using illicit cannabis, it’s very difficult to look at what the strength of those psychoactive components are, and there is a significant side-effect profile for some people. So there were some constraints on how broad we went with those exemptions.

We also heard that the current evidence for the use of medicinal cannabis in things like chronic pain wasn’t quite all there yet. There was some evidence of effectiveness, but it wasn’t completely conclusive, and we’d need further research to really get a sense of what it would be used for, best uses, and what it wasn’t that useful for. That’s an ongoing, evolving field.

Now, having gone through the select committee process, what does this bill actually do? I think the first thing is it allows those regulations to be developed that would set those quality standards for medicinal cannabis products. That’s not only talking about how they should be cultivated locally and manufactured locally but also the products that are imported from overseas. The medical cannabis scheme that’s set up will ensure that products brought into New Zealand or produced in New Zealand will meet those quality standards. As the Minister’s indicated in his speech, consultation will happen on that next year, because, given the urgency of the need for accessing these products for many people, we’ve set that one-year time limit for putting those regulations into place.

The issue we’ve got is that we believe that regulations are the best place for doing that. Unlike the members opposite who want to set that in concrete in the primary legislation, the issue we’ve got is that we’ve got an evolving field, and we feel that regulations and standards are the best way we can adapt and get those regulations and standards to move with research as it evolves. So, for us, we’re very supportive of all that detail being worked out with key experts in the field and in consultation next year. But, as I’ve said, there’s some urgency in doing that. In the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) in the committee stage he introduced that one-year requirement so that we can get on and get that done. But even having done that, it will take a while for the manufacturers to get up to speed in terms of having products accessible and available. That’s where we’ve broadened the scope of that defence so that it includes all those needing palliation. That’s a progressive, life-limiting condition where people are nearing the end of their lives.

So that’s what the bill does; what the bill doesn’t do is it doesn’t de facto decriminalise the use of illicit cannabis, as I’ve mentioned.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Will loose leaf be allowed?

The other thing that it doesn’t do is it doesn’t have politicians deciding who gets access to medicinal cannabis, because at the moment, doctors can still prescribe medicinal cannabis to anybody that they believe would benefit from having cannabis. The issue we’ve got is access, and so this bill in no way changes who will be prescribed medicinal cannabis.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Well, does it allow loose leaf?

What it is talking about is that exemption for those until that scheme is set up, in terms of the usage of illicit cannabis until that time.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Can they use loose leaf?

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

This bill significantly changes the status quo. It sets up a regulation scheme and some standards. It means that people will, in time, be able to access medicinal cannabis products that are produced to a certain standard, and in the meantime provides a statutory defence so that those using illicit cannabis may not fear prosecution. I commend this bill to the House.

Well, thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in support of this bill, and it’s a pleasure to follow a medical doctor in this debate. I was worried that I might have to speak straight after Simeon Brown. I felt like Jerry Falwell, “Mr Moral Majority”, had reincarnated and entered this House. You know, as he leaned forward, I could smell the sanctimony on his breath, and a sense of unreality permeated Simeon Brown’s speech. He said that under this bill, there would be people smoking marijuana outside the school gates.

Well, let me reflect on the transition on this issue that another member of this House went through as she changed her mind on this issue of cannabis prohibition. That was Marama Fox, a very dear member of this House and a good friend of mine, who came in here in 2014. On this issue, she was mugged by reality and she came to me a couple of years into her term and said, “David, I’ve changed my mind. Actually, we have all these problems under prohibition now. There are already people smoking cannabis outside the school gates.”

Then Simeon Brown went on to say, “Oh, there’s so many people being hospitalised because of cannabis.” People are being hospitalised because of the prohibition on cannabis and the ridiculous cat and mouse game of the State trying to keep up with the very dangerous synthetic cannabis. That is the real scourge and the real danger out there.

We’ve got to get a bit realistic in this debate. The debate is not about whether cannabis is good or bad. Personally, I happen to think it’s bad. I tried it once and all it did was make me very hungry and I didn’t try it again. I think it’s a bad drug. I think it’s wrong that when we only have one mind through which to experience the world, we would want to hallucinogenically alter that mind through the use of chemicals. I don’t understand that. I don’t think that cannabis is a good thing, but I say to the Simeon Browns of the world: that’s not the debate. The debate is about public policy. The public policy in place is not whether we moralise and sanctimoniously tell each other whether cannabis is good or bad; it’s about the public policy of prohibition. This bill is a very small concession to those who are most vulnerable in our community, who have the greatest ability to benefit from what in their view—and who am I to judge; as Simeon Brown might say, “There but for the grace of God go I.”—they believe that they can be palliated and helped by access to medicinal cannabis.

I think it’s important that in this House, we dispense with the sanctimony, we dispense with the unreality, we confront what is happening out there right now under current public policy, and we abandon the moralising; we actually ask ourselves, “Will this bill make the welfare of New Zealanders better or worse?” I think it should be clear to people that come to this debate without prejudice and with a sober analysis of the fact that it’s going to make it better for two groups of people. The first and the most obvious is that group of New Zealanders who find themselves near the end of their lives and suffering terribly, or terribly ill and in need of palliation, but the other group that is less obvious is those involved in the supply chain. As the regulations are made and it becomes possible to generate cannabis in a legal way to supply those very disadvantaged and vulnerable New Zealanders with what they want, we also remove the underground black market in which some of the poorest kids in New Zealand are being subjected to growing up in households driven by the proceeds of a crime that is made a crime simply for the sake of it, not for any benefit it has for other New Zealanders.

So I conclude that we’ve seen the perfect contrast between unreality and reality, but I’m proud to stand here on behalf of the ACT Party in support of this bill. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

I came to this Parliament to make policy on the basis of the very best science and evidence, and what’s concerned me, in listening to this debate at the third reading stage, is how little people are prepared to debate the science and the evidence of this issue. People want—whether it be cannabis, whether it be other substances—to live in this simplistic world where it’s either all good or it’s all bad. Actually, if we take an honest assessment of drugs, both those that are used for medical purposes and those that are used recreationally, drugs can be both; that is, if they are tightly regulated, like those that are used in medicines such as morphine, they can provide tremendous good. But, equally so, if ill regulated, they can be the cause of tremendous harm, and anybody that looks at the number of fatalities from drug use in the United States of America, and sweeping through the Western world right now, is concerned about the proliferation of drugs and the harm they are doing in their society.

So my first point is that drugs can do good and they can do bad, and the duty on this Parliament is to regulate it in such a way that it is good for our society. The test for us with this bill, which specifically amends our drug laws, is: is it well-thought-out law that will carefully regulate the use of cannabis so that it does good? The overwhelming answer to that has to be “No.”

I do want to refer to some science, because it concerns me that the sort of touchy-feely politico arguments around the issues of all sorts of psychoactive substances is not based on evidence. I do refer the House to the comprehensive study by The Lancet, one of the world’s most respected medical journals, that goes into the very issue of whether cannabis is, in fact, of great value in dealing with chronic pain. And I can only draw the conclusion from that study in July 2018, when it concluded that there was no evidence that cannabis use reduced pain severity or interference, and that was done in independent trials—that is, blind trials—that actually cannabis was not found to have many of the attributes that have been claimed.

It is equally significant that the Medical Council, the organisation that represents those people who study the human body for years, who are dedicated to the well-being and health of people, submitted so strongly against this bill at select committee. I say to members opposite: why do you find it so easy to dismiss the views of doctors and those who study medicines and human health for so long?

One of the most famous and one of the most thorough medical studies that’s internationally recognised, of which all New Zealanders should be proud, is the longitudinal study that’s being done by the University of Otago, going all the way back to the 1970s. It provides us with very clear data as to the impacts of cannabis use. Let me remind the House of what that concluded. It concluded that people who use cannabis regularly have a far higher risk of mental health. Now, why is it, when we have a Government that’s so focused on trying to reduce the harm of mental health, we would ignore the longitudinal study that shows that cannabis contributes significantly to mental health issues? It is also very clear that cannabis is absolutely associated with lower educational achievement. Do I want to vote for a bill that’s going to result in lower educational achievement, that’s going to dumb down our country? I say, and I express, caution—

💬 Hon Stuart Nash: Go back to Nelson.

—and here’s some hard numbers. The Minister of Police is interjecting. Does he know that the Otago University longitudinal study of cannabis shows that people who regularly use cannabis are 10 times as likely to be involved in using those very serious drugs that cause such tremendous harm in society? Are members opposite aware that that longitudinal study shows that people who use cannabis regularly are three times more likely to be unemployed?

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Oh, fake news—fake news.

And is that—well, the member Shane Jones, who talks about getting people off the couches—

💬 Hon Stuart Nash: Don’t use the stats disingenuously.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order!

I say to Mr Jones: the medical evidence shows that regular recreational use of cannabis results in more people on the couches and more people being unemployed.

Now, I am not one who is saying that cannabis has no medical use. What I am saying is that it has to be tightly regulated if we are to ensure that there is no harm to society as a whole. That is where I am so disappointed that the hard work that’s been done by Dr Shane Reti, who did the hard work and came up with a regulatory regime that gave, yes, a conservative like me confidence that we could regulate it narrowly down to those areas where we would be able to provide for benefits from cannabis—but, instead, we have this very loose bill from members opposite.

I just want members opposite to answer one simple question: will this bill allow the smoking of loose-leaf cannabis? I’ll ask the question again. I think it’s a question that New Zealanders would want the answer to. Will this bill allow the legal smoking of loose-leaf cannabis?

💬 Angie Warren-Clark: In palliative care.

Well, the member’s answered me. She has said that, yes, it does—it does! Here’s the problem. The medical evidence is that loose-leaf cannabis will be allowed to be smoked, with this bill, and yet the evidence is clear that it is not a medicine. So here’s my next question: how does the allowing of the smoking of loose-leaf cannabis contribute to this Government’s pledge of smoke-free New Zealand by 2025?

💬 Hon Stuart Nash: Give him a clip around the ear, Shane. You know better than this.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order!

Well, the member suggests that I get a clip around the ears.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Yes, that’s not appropriate.

I think it’s a serious question. Can any member opposite, having confirmed that this bill provides for the smoking of loose-leaf cannabis, explain to me how that fits with this Government’s stated policy of a smoke-free New Zealand by 2025?

💬 Angie Warren-Clark: It is a short-term measure until—

Oh, it’s a short term measure! So is the member suggesting that, with this bill, we’re going to allow the smoking of loose-leaf cannabis, but the members sitting opposite are now going to undo that once we have passed this legislation? Because here’s my last problem: when we’re dealing with such a sensitive issue of this sort, it should be Parliament that makes those decisions, and what we are being asked to do, with this bill, is to write out a blank cheque for a bunch of officials, driven by the Greens, who quite openly want to completely decriminalise cannabis use in this country—to write out a blank cheque for the Government without the scrutiny of Parliament. I could recite over 50 times, under the course of our period in Government, when members opposite complained that bills have to mean what they say and say what they mean. Well, this bill is a blank cheque and provides for none of that detail.

This bill is a Trojan horse for decriminalisation of loose-leaf cannabis in New Zealand. Members opposite should be open and honest about that. We are creating an impossible dilemma for the police to ever enforce it. We’ve got this mad situation where it’ll be legal to use cannabis and, as the member opposite confirmed, to smoke loose-leaf cannabis, but actually there being no regime to provide for how it might be grown or supplied. That is a nonsense, that is bad law, and that is why I am so opposed to this bill and why I’m so disappointed that the hard work that was done by Dr Shane Reti, in providing a detailed solution to how we might provide for medical cannabis while at the same time ensuring that we manage the harm, has been rejected by members opposite. This bill will end up as—

Order! I apologise to the member. Your time has expired.

It’s an absolute privilege to be the last speaker on the third reading of the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill. Can I just say, I just need to comment to the last speaker, Nick Smith. Could somebody open the window? The rhetoric is just suffocating.

Anyway, before I get on to a summary, I want to honour all 1,786 New Zealanders who submitted and shared their story with the Health Committee. I want to take this opportunity to say thank you. Thank you for your stories, because they have contributed to this excellent bill.

All has been mentioned by all the 11 speakers before me, so what I’m going to attempt to do is summarise some of what has been said. I begin with the leadership of the Hon David Clark. I want to quote exactly what the bill is so that there is no misunderstanding going forward, and I quote—this is from the Minister—“The bill: introduces an exception and statutory defence for people eligible to receive palliation to possess and use illicit cannabis, and to possess a cannabis utensil; provides a regulation-making power to enable the setting of standards that products manufactured, imported, or supplied under licence must meet; deschedules cannabidiol, so it is no longer a controlled drug.”

I want to comment on the Hon Simon Bridges. He asked a question: “What will police do if loose leaf is smoked near a school?” He also commented on the exceptional years of research done by Dr Shane Reti. But, in response to the Hon Simon Bridges’ question of “What will police do if loose leaf is smoked near a school?”, well, all 1,786 submitters never told us that, in their pain and in their dying days, they are outside a school smoking. Can I respond, and I want to quote this from the police who shared at the select committee. When this was put to them, the police said, “Police are currently assessing whether or not to lay charges on a case-by-case basis on evidence and in accordance with the Solicitor-General’s guidelines which state that the prosecutor must be satisfied that the evidence adduced in court is sufficient to provide a reasonable prospect of conviction and that prosecution is required in the interest of public interest. Can I say to those members, “Call 911”—or, in our case, 111.

I want to commend the leadership of the chair of this select committee, Louisa Wall. Louisa Wall shared with us the workings of the select committee. Within a year, we’ve come back with this bill and it’s now at its third reading. Louisa Wall had commended the whole of the select committee, which includes everybody. There were seven amendments that were discussed at select committee, and, out of seven, five were in the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP)—five. So in terms of the working of a select committee, I think that that’s commendable, and I want to acknowledge the work of the select committee in terms of the conversations that were held to get five amendments out of seven in the Minister’s SOP. Louisa Wall also alerted us to the fact that this will bring economic benefits to Aotearoa New Zealand—highlighting the work of Hikurangi Enterprises.

The Hon Michael Woodhouse also commented on police actions if they are smoking at a school. I’ve already said enough of that.

Jenny Marcroft from New Zealand First spoke about the need for high-quality and easily accessible medicine for people. She also gave an explanation into how New Zealand First have found a coalition to work together—that New Zealand First believes in showing compassion and that this is about showing compassion in terms of bringing in the word “palliation”, which improves the quality of life with regards to those of our loved ones who are dying.

Dr Shane Reti focused, again, on loose leaf. He focused on his international research. My response to Dr Shane Reti is maybe it was a little too late. There were nine years that he could have brought those in.

Chlöe Swarbrick questioned us that surely the point of laws is to keep people safe, and she further stated along her speech that this bill is how we treat our sick through compassion.

The Hon Nicky Wagner also spoke about how Labour had nine years in Opposition to come up with a detailed bill. Well, it baffles me. National had nine years—National had nine years to come up with Dr Shane Reti’s ideas. I think all speakers of the National Party commented on the excellent research and the dedication of Dr Shane Reti. I think that was an opportunity lost that they could have done in the last nine years. She also talked about requiring careful thought when decisions are made, and I will respond to that later on.

Angie Warren-Clark talked about palliative care—that it’s different and that when you’re in that state of your life, the last thing you want to hear is somebody telling you how long you have to live. So palliative care, when it’s needed, then you take it.

💬 Simeon Brown: well, I’m not going to talk about that anymore, because it was covered by the other speaker. When you’re smoking outside rehabilitation premises—well, if I’m in my dying days, again, the last place I would be is smoking at a school or taking illicit cannabis outside some sort of a rehabilitation place.

I want to talk about Dr Liz Craig. Dr Liz Craig told us that people who came to the select committee shared about the suffering and chronic pain. They shared about how their loved ones or themselves had gone through this. She also alerted the fact to us that this is not a de facto legalising of cannabis. She said, “Doctors can already prescribe medicinal cannabis.” Of course, David Seymour talked about the unreality permeating from the other speaker on the other side and that the real danger here is synthetic cannabis. That is the real danger.

Dr Nick Smith spoke honestly about an assessment, tightly regulated, providing tremendous good. He talked about New Zealand research. He gave us all this research, but I want to end and I want to quote the next steps from the Minister. I can add a lot into the conversation, but I think this piece of legislation needs to actually pass so that those who are in need of palliation can receive what they can under this bill. And I want to quote the Minister, because I think it will clarify what the next steps are, if the Opposition didn’t hear it.

I quote, “The ministry will release a consultation paper on the scheme early next year. This consultation paper will seek feedback on quality standards, licensing system, and the regulations needed to establish the Scheme. The Misuse of Drugs legislation already provides a framework for licensing the production of medicinal cannabis products. The Scheme makes use of the existing framework, and does not add unnecessary compliance costs. The Ministry will develop the quality standards in consultation with experts.” The Minister—as he said—is “convening a medical cannabis oversight panel to provide feedback and expert advice on the development of the Scheme.”

There’s no need for me to delay this any further. It has been an absolute honour. This is the first bill, as a new member of Parliament, that I have gone from inception to now passing in its third reading. I want to acknowledge all the stories that have been shared intimately with the select committee. I want to acknowledge the leadership of the coalition Government and its supportive partner, and I commend this bill to the House.