Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: I move, That the Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

It gives me great pride to stand in support of the Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill 2024. I’d like to start by thanking those members of the Health Committee, chaired by Sam Uffindell, but also Drs Hamish Campbell and Carlos Cheung, Ingrid Leary, Cameron Luxton, Hūhana Lyndon, Jenny Marcroft, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, and Dr Ayesha Verrall. These guys, I think, have done tremendous work. There have been a total of 169 people who have submitted in the very compressed time frame available of four weeks to hear from the public. In addition to those people, nine organisations made a submission, and they report that most organisations, including pharmaceutical industry bodies and drug harm prevention groups, indicated support for the bill in their submissions.

The select committee says it’s not recommending any amendments to the bill as introduced, and that is in a way expected, because it is an extremely simple bill. In fact, here it is; it’s really just 1½ pages, and two pieces of paper is the whole thing. And all it really does is move the drug pseudoephedrine from one schedule of the Misuse of Drugs Act, where it’s a class B drug, to another schedule, where it’s made a class C2 drug. So it’s not surprising that the select committee didn’t decide to make great changes. However, they did hear from many members of the public, who gave some feedback that I think we found very helpful, and I certainly appreciated reading their report.

They pointed out that pseudoephedrine is a precursor drug; it can be used to make methamphetamine. And yet, since 2011, when pseudoephedrine was banned, the price of pseudoephedrine has gone down; the quantity consumed, unfortunately, has gone up; and according to the availability index, it’s become more available. They point out, according to one submitter, that to make a kilogram of pure meth, you would need 27.8 kilograms of pseudoephedrine medication. At that point, you could probably just cure a lifetime of colds and coughs! In contrast, only 1.75 kilograms of higher-efficiency precursor is needed for the same yield—2,430 packets of pseudoephedrine cough medicine to make 1,000 grams of P, and you start to understand why it is that the people who supply these drugs have started bringing it in in more pure forms from overseas rather than going round pharmacies trying to buy up pills that they can cook down into meth.

None the less, they acknowledge the possibility that some people may try that. And it’s a concern, because methamphetamine is probably—in fact, almost certainly—the worst drug available in New Zealand and doing more social harm than any other drug. That is something that we should be concerned about. And what the—

Ricardo Menéndez March: Apply that analysis to cannabis.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: And there’s a man here who says, “Apply that analysis to cannabis.” But that member has been doing his own trials for far too long!

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I don’t think that comment is necessary. Thank you.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: It’s not necessary. But some of the best things in life, Madam Speaker, aren’t necessary. We just do them anyway.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Like you in Parliament.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: He’s still trying to heckle, but I can’t hear clearly what he’s trying to say.

There were serious concerns raised about crime and the safety of pharmacists, and one suggestion that was made was that perhaps there should be a register kept, on a nationwide basis, of everybody who buys pseudoephedrine products. That certainly would appear, at face value, to be helpful. At the moment, there is a system that exists called the New Zealand ePrescription Service, and increasingly, pharmacists are adopting electronic dispensing, so it may well be that, due to advances in technology, we’re not far off the time when people can actually get a record of every purchase of pharmaceuticals and track patterns of people who are strategically shopping to stockpile pseudoephedrine drugs so they can manufacture methamphetamine. And that might be a very useful thing to have.

On the other hand, there’s strong indications that because, as I was saying earlier, it’s no longer economically viable to make meth out of pseudoephedrine tablets, it’s most likely that that regulation won’t make a great deal of difference. And yet the technology may make it possible soon in any event. Regardless, as the Labour Party, and the majority of the committee as well, have noted the comments I made to the committee, it would seem sensible to give New Zealanders the clear benefits of the convenience of pseudoephedrine cough and cold medicine as soon as possible, while monitoring the situation with a view to more enforcement measures if they turn out to be necessary. And that’s the thing: they may not turn out to be necessary; in which case, over-regulating and overspending on things that aren’t necessary can sometimes be as bad, if not a worse mistake, than testing whether there is truly a problem to be solved, particularly when there’s every reason to believe that there is not a problem anymore with people cooking pseudoephedrine.

I hope that all parties will support this legislation. I think it’s a symbol of a few things. Too often, it feels like New Zealand is a place where people are trying to make life harder, where you have to obey rules that don’t make sense, just because that’s the way it is. We want to be a happy and successful country where, if Government makes a mistake and there’s an opportunity to improve people’s lives by admitting that and reversing the mistake, then—you know what?—we do it. And people actually can be free to make the most of their time on earth on their terms, so long as they’re not harming others. And so, when the Government realised that banning pseudoephedrine, banning the good cough medicine, didn’t stop the bad people making P, the right thing to do is to reverse the policy and let people have the medicine that makes them feel better again. It’s just the simple, straightforward thing that anybody in this circumstance would do.

And it also shows that we have a Government that is committed to making rules and regulations based on good evidence of what works. In this particular instance, we’ve actually done a 13-year trial, if you like, and what we’ve discovered is that the regulation didn’t work. We didn’t get the benefits of stopping P; we just paid the cost of having to use, frankly, rubbish cough and cold medicine. Well, actually, if something doesn’t work, we just stop doing it, and I think being prepared to be responsible regulators, I hope as the Minister for Regulation at least, will be another hallmark of this Government—that we define the problems we are trying to solve and use proper cost-benefit analysis. I think that, across a whole range of activities, everything from farming to finance to teaching to trying to get decent pharmaceuticals, that’s really going to do a lot for New Zealanders’ ability to make a difference in their own lives and those they care about, to provide for themselves and their families, without being restrained by unnecessary rules and regulations. That seems like the thing that a country that wants people to have long, happy, and healthy lives would do, and that’s what a responsible Government would do in response.

So, in conclusion, I’m very pleased that this bill has come through the select committee. I’m grateful to the 169 people and nine organisations who took the time to make a submission to help inform the committee, even in the compressed time frame that they had. And I’m grateful for those members of the select committee who took the time to hear those members of the public and make their recommendations and suggestions so that this bill could benefit from the best of our representative democracy and the parliamentary process in order that we can make better laws. I now look forward—

Hon Rachel Brooking: It’s not the best process.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: And someone said it’s not the best. Well, actually, I think listening to the public and making your views known and deciding where to go—I think that is the best of our democratic process. What is wrong with the Labour Party? Why are they so down this week, is what I want to know. What has gone wrong over there? Maybe they are ill and need some pseudoephedrine! Well, I’ve got good news there too. And what we’re going to see increasingly is a piece of law that is going to make it better for New Zealanders when they feel ill, and with that, I commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Well, taking that offer of some pseudoephedrine for the Labour Party and saying, “No, thank you; we’re all quite healthy over here.”, but also saying, “Well, hasn’t this been parliamentary process on speed with this bill?”

Now, we’re happy to support this bill because we agree that over-the-counter pseudoephedrine will be helpful to many people suffering from coughs and colds, but this bill is rushed, and while we are grateful for the people who did take the time to speak to the Health Committee, we noticed many of them complained about the truncated process that they had to go through, and, no doubt, there are many important voices that we did not get to hear from during that process.

We also heard about a number of concerns that I’ll elaborate on in my remarks this evening, that we didn’t have the opportunity to explore fully, or it is clear that officials advising the committee and the Associate Minister of Health (Pharmac) didn’t have the opportunity to explore fully. We want to canvass that, because it is important to realise that, in doing so, as the Minister has acknowledged, we are making more available a drug that has tremendous social impacts in New Zealand because of the tremendous amount of harm if it is converted to meth, and we need to step into that decision responsibly.

I want to acknowledge the chair of the Health Committee, Mr Sam Uffindell, for making sure that within the constraints that Parliament had set, that he extended submissions to the committee to make sure as many people as possible were able to be heard, given the short time line set by the Minister. I also want to acknowledge the collaborative way in which the committee was able to gather evidence together, and it has been one of the highlights of being in Opposition, is the enjoyable experience we get to have on the Health Committee.

I also want to acknowledge those who submitted. We heard stories, many of which did, indeed, support the bill, but we also heard from people whose lives have been impacted by methamphetamine and who had concerns. I think those concerns are not so easily brushed aside. I understand that the rational actor theory would suggest that, when it is cheaper to get meth imported already produced from overseas, there is no rational reason why someone would steal pseudoephedrine to produce it themselves less efficiently from a pharmacy.

Addiction isn’t rational, and that is the problem that we have, as acknowledged by some of the people with experience working in addictions who submitted to the select committee. There will be people experiencing addiction, moments of desperation, who will think that stealing or purchasing large amounts of pseudoephedrine would be an appropriate way to make meth. I think where I’d like to focus my contribution is on how we mitigate those risks, because those risks are real, and to say that we have a theory that pretends that those risks are not real is reckless lawmaking. We should take them seriously.

Those mitigations are, firstly, the need for pseudoephedrine to be stored securely. The option to do that is available in regulations under the Misuse of Drugs Act, but we are not taking that option in this bill. The select committee heard that the Ministry of Health sought a very limited number of views on this matter. In fact, they told us that they heard from fewer than 10 people on this when they did their consultation on advice that later informed the design of this law, and only a handful of them were people with experience of pharmacy and they were some peak body representatives in pharmacies.

So the bill currently does not require pseudoephedrine to be restricted, to be stored under lock and key when it’s in a pharmacy. In fact, the advice that the select committee received from the ministry was that their view was that there would be too much sold in order to enable it to be stored under lock and key, as many other controlled drugs are.

You see the problem this presents. It means that we’re storing larger quantities of a drug that has a street value, of a drug that could be abused, in a less secure space. I believe that that is very concerning and that is a mitigation that has not been taken in this bill. The risk is break-ins to pharmacies and ram raids.

Now, our committee did discuss these issues, and the view of some was that we trust pharmacists to take that risk. My point would be that the harm of these types of crimes is not just faced by pharmacists or pharmacy owners; it is faced by the community; it is faced by the workers in those stores as well. We have an opportunity to do better on that matter.

The Minister has already addressed the second mitigation, and that is the issue of registers for monitoring the sale and purchase of pseudoephedrine. This allows two things: it allows us to trace back when there’s an investigation going on, to find out if a network is purchasing a lot of pseudoephedrine in order to make meth. It also might allow real-time detection of that, and that is the case of similar registers used in Queensland.

Now, the Minister suggests that there is a possibility that the evolving nature of pharmacy IT systems may mean that sort of work is possible in the future, but my view is that this is already a worthy option to pursue. That is the view of many pharmacists who submitted, and I do not accept the assurances of Te Whatu Ora that having some work that might allow this one day is sufficient assurance to say that we are already there. The fact is that there is a risk of abuse with pseudoephedrine being changed into meth, and we are not taking action to enable an important mitigation to find out when that is happening.

The third mitigation that’s really important is the need to make sure that there are appropriate treatment services for those impacted by addiction. There are now widespread community-level services for addiction through the Access and Choice programme, but some of the needs of people with meth addiction would be above what is able to be handled by that primary care - level programme, and so we need to make sure that more specialised meth services continue to be rolled out, because why would we step down this path where, potentially, we risk increasing access to meth in the community without also having a strong offer of treatment services?

Another related issue that was raised, which was news to me, by the Drug Foundation, was a large number of people with addiction who, in fact, have ADHD, and sometimes in their use of meth—this was not the Drug Foundation’s view, but one could imagine there is some type of self-medication going on there with use of drugs like meth, when Ritalin is so hard to access through legitimate channels in New Zealand. So I think there are two important treatment options we need to strengthen, one being addiction services, the other being access to ADHD treatments.

I would like to just go back to the process, because I think we did have an opportunity with this bill to do better than we will by rushing it. It is not just that members of the public in the four-week period only had just over one week to submit—members of the public and organisations—but also that the Ministry of Health’s ability to reach in to solve these practical problems and resolve them when they heard from pharmacists was limited. As I said, they only heard from fewer than 10 representatives when they did their targeted consultation to inform the bill. Also, other options like the possibility of binders—compounds that are added to pseudoephedrine tablets so as to make it harder, to inhibit the production of meth from them—we heard about this possibility from submitters, but the advisers were unable to help us resolve it because they hadn’t had time to really go into the evidence.

So, while we support the appropriateness of people having access to pseudoephedrine for coughs and colds, there are a large number of needs for mitigations that fall outside the scope of this bill that we really need the Government to explore. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. The Green Party is supporting this bill, although we are highly critical of the shortened process. My main question to the ACT members of the Government is: why stop at pseudoephedrine? Why stop at pseudoephedrine?

We all know the Misuse of Drugs Act isn’t working, that banning substances isn’t the right way to deal with addiction, and also there is even worse science supporting some of the other potentially very therapeutic substances that are currently class A on the schedule under the Misuse of Drugs Act that could be transformational and helpful to people who are suffering from different mental health and addictions here in New Zealand. The sooner the ACT Party and Government do something to properly review the Misuse of Drugs Act, the better, from my point of view.

As other speakers in this debate have already raised, it was a very shortened select committee process. Despite that, nearly 200 people submitted—well, 169 individuals and nine organisations—and they didn’t have sufficient time to properly consider potentially wider changes to the Misuse of Drugs Act which would have been really helpful. But I, personally—and I think I can speak on behalf of our Green Party colleagues—am pleased that at least it’s being recognised that it is worth tackling changes to the Misuse of Drugs Act when it’s not working and when it’s preventing New Zealanders from getting the treatment that they need, whether that’s treatment for colds—and I am a big fan of pseudoephedrine: when I have a really bad cold, that stuff’s great; it’s a great medical option to have available.

But, as we well know and as the Green Party has consistently raised in this House, there are many issues with the Misuse of Drugs Act and it is time for us to review it much more widely and to take a science- and harm minimisation - based approach to how we regulate drugs in this country. Of course, there is some harm caused by methamphetamine and other substances, but I think the key recognition is that just banning it and trying to ban the precursors doesn’t solve the problem. We’ve seen that with meth: that meth, with the precursor not being widely available, still became cheaper and more available during that period of time despite being banned.

So, on the one hand, we were taking away a reasonable option that many New Zealanders would have, no doubt, taken up when they are suffering from colds and flu; yet, on the other hand, we didn’t do enough to help those who were truly suffering from meth addiction. I think there’s a couple of factors that were, of course, reported to the select committee. One is that the key way to address addiction is to treat it as a health issue rather than a criminal issue, firstly. But, secondly, that people are much more susceptible to addiction when they aren’t getting other needs met in their life. So addressing poverty and inequality, will do—

Hon Member: Childhood trauma.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: —and childhood trauma—a lot to support people who are suffering from addiction. Ironically, some of the substances that are banned currently—class A substances that are now available in places like Australia for prescription—are some of the most effective treatments for childhood trauma, PTSD, and addiction.

So, yeah, I’m really looking to the Government to say you don’t need to rush it through so fast, but there’s a lot more good work that can be done in this space. So we’d love to see a priority of reviewing the Misuse of Drugs Act, treating addiction as a harm minimisation and a health issue rather than as a criminal issue, and making available therapeutic substances that have for too long and with insufficient evidence been denied to New Zealanders. Those are things that really could be potentially beneficial and transformational for New Zealanders. So we support the bill, not the short process.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak in support of the Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill at its second reading, which is a bill in the name of the Associate Minister of Health the Hon David Seymour. This is a relatively simple bill. It amends the classification of pseudoephedrine from a class B2 to a class C3 controlled drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975.

It removes the ban that was put in place in 2011, and I want to take a moment to thank the Health Committee and the members on it for the pretty collegial and supportive atmosphere. We’ve got along well. We’ve been able to talk through the issues. The Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall from the Opposition has been a good person to work with on this, as have all the other members. We have a number of members of the committee here, or ones that have subbed in, and I just want to recognise all the work that you have done in getting this through promptly.

There are a lot of benefits to this bill. As everyone in Wellington will know, we’ve come down here—I came down from beautiful Tauranga yesterday, where it was a warm, sunny day. I came down to Wellington and it’s considerably colder, and I know that a lot of people will be getting into that winter cold and flu season pretty soon. The good news for them is that in the not too distant future, there will be pseudoephedrine available from pharmacies, so they can take that and then recover their health and wellbeing and get back to work and continue living their lives in a lot more peaceful and enjoyable manner.

As we know, our patients currently can’t get over-the-counter pseudoephedrine. A prescription was needed, but there were issues with the importation of that. It wasn’t being made available because there wasn’t a big enough market for it and, as a result, the ability of people to get that from a prescription in New Zealand faded away. There has been a bit of talk about alternative medicines that could be used and that have come to market to try and treat people with cold and flu symptoms, but the reality is that they’re just not nearly as effective as pseudoephedrine.

There have been some concerns raised during the select committee process. Obviously, people know that pseudoephedrine is used as a precursor to methamphetamine production, and that was primarily the reason why it was reclassified back in 2011. The result of that wasn’t what was wanted or anticipated, which would have been a reduction in methamphetamine availability, but the criminal organisations and the gangs found alternative routes to either manufacture or—more likely—import pseudoephedrine from international criminal syndicates into New Zealand. But we haven’t seen a decrease in use; we have possibly seen the opposite. Recent stats have shown that we have seen an increase in use recently, and we have also seen a reasonably considerable drop in the price of methamphetamine.

The intention of what happened in 2011 hasn’t really led to the outcomes that were intended. What was done back then hasn’t really fitted with what we wanted to see, so bringing this back in, as the Minister is doing at the moment—we don’t believe it’s going to lead to an explosion in methamphetamine consumption. It is recognised that there may be some very small personal manufacture. But the reality is that there’s already those networks available for people to obtain methamphetamine through existing drug channels out there, and this isn’t likely to lead to a dramatic increase in supply, as noted, but only for small-scale personal use. I think the Minister noted quite well, as well, that it would take 2,430 packets of pseudoephedrine to make 1,000 grams of P, and there are much more effective ways that that can be done now, with more intensive forms and much smaller quantities required to produce the ultimate outcome which they’re intending, which is to produce or cook P.

We did note that there were a few mitigants, which were discussed. There will still be suppliers who will still need a licence to import. We are looking, in the future, to amend the Medicines Regulations 1984, which will require people to purchase pseudoephedrine face to face. Pharmacists must record information. The committee did also ask that there be a look forward to see whether we could have a system like they have in Australia—where they have a real-time, online registry of everyone who has purchased pseudoephedrine—so that we can be aware of where someone is going around a bunch of pharmacies, purchasing in bulk, and that that can be picked up and mitigated. I will also note that when we look at other comparable countries, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia all allow for what this bill is intending to achieve, which is the purchase of pseudoephedrine for cold and flu relief.

So we are highly supportive of this, and as this went through a select committee, I will note—and the Opposition have certainly noted—that it was a short process. I took note of that. I did extend that period for several days so that we could have more written submissions come in. We did hear from a number of submitters. We had written submissions and in-person submissions, and also several online submissions, as well. We note that there were no recommended changes to the bill through the select committee period. It was supported unanimously, and it comes back to the House now in that form. We had 169 individual submissions and we had nine from organisations. Most of the organisations were in favour, and that includes industry bodies and harm prevention groups.

It was noted around the use of binders by Dr Verrall, which would help to reduce the ability of people to take pseudoephedrine and then cut it or cook it and then develop P from that. But there were a couple of instances where it had been looked at and, ultimately, the results from that were inconclusive, so that hasn’t been something that has been brought into this.

I’d like to note what Dr Verrall also said around ADHD and people with ADHD having a higher usage of methamphetamine. I think that that does point to us needing to look further into ways to identify people with that and to then make sure that those services such as Ritalin are available, or more readily available, so that they aren’t looking for P to help relieve those symptoms there.

Ricardo Menéndez March: What about housing and incomes, as well?

SAM UFFINDELL: I missed that. But—I’m probably summing up now, Madam Speaker—look, it’s clear that New Zealanders are going to gain benefits from this. I remember that, before 2011, when you could get pseudoephedrine, I had colds and flus, and I did go and purchase pseudoephedrine. I found it remarkably helpful in treating those symptoms and in allowing me to get back to my life, and I know that a lot of New Zealanders are going to appreciate having the ability for them to do that.

This provides New Zealanders with choice. It also provides pharmacists with choice too, and I must note that pharmacists can choose. Pharmacies can choose whether or not they want to stock pseudoephedrine. If they determine in their capacity that there is an increased risk or a risk that they are not willing to tolerate from stocking pseudoephedrine, that’s fine. They don’t have to stock it, and I think that that is one of the good things about this bill. It does give people choice, it gives pharmacists choice, it gives people and consumers choice, and I think that is a good thing.

I note that the Minister said that this is good legislation and that it allows people to get on with their lives without unnecessary rules and regulations. We will monitor this as it is rolled out and we will see whether more enforcement or regulation is needed, and we can assess that in time. But this is a good, practical bill, and I do hope that it enjoys unanimous support in the House. I commend this bill.

I rise to speak in support of Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill. I would reiterate the fact that this is a common-sense, practical approach, particularly as I have a cold, and we’re heading into winter. Pseudoephedrine would be incredibly helpful right about now.

I suppose I’d go back to putting this into a process of reality check. I was a uniformed sergeant when methamphetamine first made its appearance in South Auckland. The reality was that it was an incredible scourge on our society, and it ran away. The complexity of the environment we dealt with, at the time, to create meth labs, to cook, the process of obtaining pseudoephedrine—it was a complex and really difficult environment. The labs themselves were highly volatile, and the cooks were highly sought after and traded commodity to produce the methamphetamine. It wasn’t an easy process. Quickly, methamphetamine took hold. It was logical that we did everything we could do to restrict the ability to create that supply. It was damaging so many lives and so many societies. So, at the time, pseudoephedrine was reclassified. It was logical, it was practical, and it was a process that needed to be followed to achieve some kind of impact in the industry.

But as has been pointed out, drug addicts have incredible difficulties to deal with. They get manipulated, and the market quickly pivoted to create a level of supply that enabled methamphetamine to become the most prevalent drug in New Zealand. We’re now talking about an environment, where, just in January, we had a seizure of 4.8 tonnes that was heading to Australia and New Zealand. We’re now dealing with completed product in the tonnage that is heading to New Zealand. This is something we could never have thought of creating under a pseudoephedrine lab in New Zealand. The fact is it’s cheaper, it is more efficient, and it is easier to supply. I’ll comment on the fact that, you know, yes, we know that when you’re addicted, your drive to achieve what you need is such that you will do desperate things. But I would suggest that purchasing, stealing, obtaining pseudoephedrine in order to set up a lab to cook, when just about everyone will know where meth can be supplied in their communities, and obtaining cash is far simpler than obtaining pseudoephedrine. So, yes, we need to do a lot of work. We need to do a lot of work to control methamphetamine’s impact it has on New Zealand society.

But that is not going to change with pseudoephedrine being available as a suitable, practical, medical solution for colds and flus. It’s a good medicine. We’ve all endorsed that it is a good medicine, and bringing it back to ready availability is just a common-sense solution. That’s really what this legislation is about. It’s a common-sense solution, because the motivation for making it or classifying it differently has shifted. This doesn’t mean we take the eye off the ball and don’t continue to look at the methods around which we can remove methamphetamine, control it, and reduce its harm on societies, but the prevalence is such that we need different initiatives. I think that the discussion that we’ve had around the risk that pseudoephedrine presents to the creation of methamphetamine—I think that that environment has passed us, and we now have much bigger issues to deal with.

As Minister of Customs, I see daily the reports coming through around the systems and processes that are in place to deliver methamphetamine to New Zealand. That’s not in the form of pseudoephedrine. This is just about fixing what was done. We did it for the right motivations at the time it was done, but now New Zealand has moved on, and the environment has moved on. We need to ensure that we continue to make good medicines available. I acknowledge that there is a range of medicines that, you know, we need to ensure a supply to the market.

But pseudoephedrine—this is a simple piece of legislation that is being noted. It is encouraging that all parties recognise the importance and the dangers of the drugs that are prevalent in society, and that they support the benefits of pseudoephedrine in recognising that it is suitable to be re-introduced back to New Zealand. The risk it poses in this crime environment is minimal, I would suggest. I think that we are smarter and more intelligent, and we need to be able to pivot quickly and effectively to ensure that we are responding to what New Zealanders need, and heading into winter in this environment—I think it is really important that we work together to change things that are no longer relevant to what is occurring in New Zealand. For that reason, I recommend this bill to the House.

The next call is a split call. I call Debbie Ngarewa-Packer.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. I think it’s really commendable that the House is debating solutions for vulnerable people, particularly elderly who will do well by having access to better cold and flu medicines. But what I do want to do is take another step in this debate.

I come from communities where the average income for many is around about $29,000 a year. There is an assumption that those addicts and those people in those desperate situations are following a common-sense approach to their addictions and to their drugs. I come from communities where we see the kids that have fried themselves on synthetics that they’ve mucked around with because Governments—and, actually, the same Government that got rid of this bill in 2011—allowed synthetics to be sold and to come into our communities. There’s an assumption that there is a common-sense approach to how it is that they are going to get into drugs: in any way that they can.

So when we had this discussion about not harming others, where I come from, in the debates and discussions and the decisions that guide us, is that the potential harm outweighs the common sense to medicinal needs for communities who are obviously living different lives to some of the lives in the communities that we represent. I wish—I wish—that it was as simple. The reality is, we have a massive addiction issue and there hasn’t been the investment into the support in the communities that are the most vulnerable, to address that. So, when we talk about things like this, I can’t help but see those kids and see those families that are doing anything they can to get their hits.

Changing the classification of class B to class C—again, I totally get it, I hear the discussion, and, in fact, went back and looked at the submissions to the Health Committee. This is a Government that prides itself in removing bureaucracy, but what we’re going to have now is pharmacists who are going to have to do face-to-face transactions, process records of information, and highlight advice, including counselling and any trends with patients that shouldn’t be taking things. We haven’t really heard what and how the register’s going to be managed—I’m assuming that that will be coming. We have heard, I guess, some versions of what that may look like: customs and police still have powers to control, like it is an illicit drug-use, and they have the licence to import and export. Nothing in there says that there’s any less bureaucracy; in fact, it says that we’re piling back more.

Again, I just want to put on the side that we still haven’t addressed the massive addiction issue, predominantly in our vulnerable communities, and for us, as Māori. Yes, again, it’s pragmatic, it makes perfect sense, but this is a drug that is a drug of abuse, and it’s used to produce meth. That is the “but”.

We will be the only party in the House not supporting it, and it’s on the basis of the “but”. I guess, as the smallest party, we’ve always got to have that one party that says, “But this is what our community looks like, and this is what we’re concerned about.” Meth hasn’t gone away.

One of the important things, when we go and we ask the kaumātua and we’re talking, is asking, “What would you prefer, that we have access to a really good medicine for you, or we could bring this drug back into your communities?” And we’ve been getting a resounding, “We don’t want it back.”

We supported National—what they did in 2011. In fact, the Prime Minister at the time, John Key, was adamant—in fact, I think, he got robbed by somebody who was looking to get money for P. That’s how bad it is. It hasn’t gone away. The sophistication of the access to it may have gone away for some of your communities, but it certainly hasn’t gone away from ours. It’s good to hear that National sort of admit that, hey, it hasn’t worked.

But what I do want to do is say that we have seen submissions where recovering P addicts had pleaded, “Please don’t make it accessible for vulnerable communities.” So, when we look at this, I want to highlight the risks. I want to highlight the risk of organised crimes, even though we’ve been assured that it won’t be to the scale and the sophistication that we’ve previously seen. I want to highlight the increase in bureaucracy, although we’ve been told that that’s not going to be a big deal. I want to highlight the pressure on pharmacists, and communities attached to those pharmacists. I want to also highlight the “back on track” to risks to communities that are vulnerable and don’t have any other way of getting over some of the pain that they feel economically. But, most importantly, we don’t have enough addiction support in vulnerable communities. I do want to leave that with this House to think about. We won’t be supporting this Bill. Kia ora rā.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure and privilege to speak to the Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill, and this is a bill that we’re supporting. I want to reflect that I by no means am the only person with a close family history of having loved ones who have abused meth, but I’m certainly one of those people who has really, really close experience with family members having been addicted to meth, and I’ve seen firsthand the harm and the destruction of life that this substance can cause. Because of that, it’s incredibly clear to me how the criminalisation of substances hasn’t worked to actually support people, neither to stop getting them addicted nor as part of the recovery journey. Growing up in Tijuana in, basically, the heart of the war on drugs, I’ve seen firsthand how the war on drugs, and the war on meth more specifically, has failed.

So this bill presents an opportunity to actually change the debate to one that centres our conversation on issues around public health, on how we can actually take an evidence-based approach to support people so that they’re not ravaged by the harm that substances like meth can cause in our communities. This bill alone won’t actually end that harm, but what it will do is prevent people from actually being further criminalised and being put into a cycle where they’re left at risk of poor outcomes because of the harms that incarceration causes.

Yet I think where the gap lies—and I want to acknowledge submitters who raised issues of this nature—is around ensuring that we have adequate addiction support services, making sure that we actually address some of the social determinants of health that continue being completely not addressed, such as good incomes, good housing, connected communities. Those are the things that actually create protective factors for people to not face the harms that substances can cause. And it is not to say that if you’ve got good incomes and good housing, you’re completely immune to, say, for example, being harmed by meth, but those things actually go a long way to preventing people from having their lives destroyed because of substances. Also, when you don’t have good incomes and good housing, you’re way more at risk of meth actually ruining your life. So this bill will at least prevent a degree of criminalisation that would’ve caused more harm.

I think, to the point around some of the speakers who’ve talked about how pharmacists will be at the front lines of the change in how pseudoephedrine is accessed, I think it’s really important to recognise the role of pharmacies as front-line health services who are actually sometimes the first and, often, the only point of call for our communities—particularly those on low incomes, formerly incarcerated people, gang-affiliated communities—to deal with health services. Yes, pharmacists will be the ones who will be at the front lines supporting our communities through this change, and, therefore, we need a Government that backs pharmacists to actually be resourced to then deliver these substances to the community and to deliver health services to the community in a way that remains safe. We know, as it is, pharmacies and the pharmacists that run them are under increased pressure yet have the potential to actually take the pressure off other parts of our health system.

I want to end by reflecting that the approach that has been taken on pseudoephedrine, and particularly in its relationship to meth, is one that I think the Government should look at with other substances. We should take a consistent, evidence- and health-based approach to drugs. We shouldn’t just cherry-pick the one that has a populist tone to it, and actually make sure that we look at the same evidence that we use for this bill and translate it to the other substances that are wreaking havoc in our community because we’ve chosen to criminalise it. To some of the Government members who spoke about, for example, the importing of substances due to cartel activity, there are opportunities to curb some of that by ensuring we take a health approach to substances. So my ask of this Government, by having a bill that many of us in the House can get behind, is to follow suit and actually look at all the other substances that we criminalised and put a health lens to them so that we can support our communities and stop people becoming incarcerated and their lives being ruined because of an outdated approach to drugs.

I rise in support of the Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill. It’s great to hear support from around the House. I do note that doesn’t include Te Pāti Māori.

We all know what it’s like to have a cold. Typically, we probably will experience two or four colds a year, and that probably equates to about 14 to 40 days of feeling like absolute rubbish, each year. Prior to 2004, you could actually buy some great medication here in New Zealand, which had an active ingredient known as pseudoephedrine that would actually make you feel at least a little bit alive during those times. But, of course, I will just point out, these medications are still available in Australia, the UK, the US, and most of Europe. We’ve heard a lot about its role as a precursor for meth, but it’s also important to acknowledge the valuable role that pseudoephedrine plays in relieving nasal congestion—whether that’s been due to a cold or a sinus infection, it’s one of the most uncomfortable symptoms you can experience during a cold. Therefore, I think this is one of the more highly effective decongestants, and it helps relieve that symptom of pain and pressure.

I know a lot of people are going to claim that we’re only dealing with the symptoms, but I think you just need to be a young parent battling a cold when your toddler also has a cold to know that this is kind of magical medication, because you need to function not only for your own good but also for the good of your family. Additionally, a number of other medications we take, without batting an eyelid, also just treat our symptoms and not really cure the underlying causes. I think this is probably something we need to remember next time we take some Panadol.

I am a member of the Health Committee, and I do just want to acknowledge all the submitters that took the time to make submissions to the Health Committee. We heard from a whole range of people, including some industry bodies, including from pharmacists—and they really do care about their patients and they want to have the most effective medications they can distribute to their patients. And that is the reason why a lot of pharmacists want to stock it. I will just also note that pharmacists could choose not to stock it, if they felt it was a security threat.

We have heard, in opposition to this bill, that it would create a lot of bureaucracy, but I will just point out this is like any controlled medication that a pharmacist needs to distribute: they need to have that face-to-face contact, and there’s paperwork and prescriptions to go along with it. This would not require a prescription and it would allow people just to walk into the pharmacy and be able to procure it once they’ve had consultation.

Now, we’ve heard a whole range of issues. One of them, of course, is the supply and the availability of methamphetamine. We have already heard that since a ban of this, precursive, that we still have a problem with meth and it actually has increased. I think one of the members already has alluded to a shipment of in the vicinity of 400 tonnes was intercepted before coming to Australia and New Zealand. I will just once again point out that it takes 2,430 packets of pseudoephedrine medication to make 1 kilogram of meth. I think we can probably do the maths there, and you’d need an awful lot of medication. But, of course, that level of supply coming into the country has meant the price of meth has dropped a lot, so any supply from pseudoephedrine would be at a fairly low level. But, of course, it is important to note that there will be some people that may try and make meth from the pseudoephedrine, and we do need to make sure we can do all we can in our powers to prevent that, because meth is a scourge on our country and a number of people do take it. So, with that, I think this is a great medication for people who have colds, we all know what it’s like, and I therefore will commend this bill to the House.

Prior to coming to Parliament some years ago, I had a broadcasting business—a television production company—and a really good, strong partnership in that with my business partner, who very sadly got into meth and, within six months, had committed suicide. So I bring that to the debate this evening as the context from which I speak and also as someone who, like the Green Party member has had, has seen the impacts of methamphetamine within my own family situation.

So this is a balance and a consideration that I take very seriously about whether allowing this bill to go through is, on balance, going to be more beneficial than harmful. I have to say that, on reflection, I think it does produce good public interest with no great risk of harm—but with some caveats around that, as my colleague Dr Ayesha Verrall has said.

So the benefits are obviously the mitigation of the cold and flu symptoms that people feel. There’s also the access to treatment—because on this side of the House, we’re mindful that GP visits cost money; that can be a barrier to getting treatment and even getting prescriptions can be a barrier. So, in that regard, we see having access to this medication is a really good thing. But we do have issues with the process. In my view, there has been a bit of an executive overreach, once again, just through the truncated process that’s occurred. But more sinister, perhaps, is that I think the National Government has shown quite a casual and cavalier attitude to the methamphetamine issue generally through the way they have approached this process—and I’ll speak to that soon.

For a start, around process, it is unusual for a Minister to make these kinds of decisions that Medsafe, a group of experts, would normally make: to declassify or reclassify a medication. The Associate Minister of Health (Pharmac) did appear before the Health Committee and we asked him questions on this quite closely, and he, basically, admitted that it was a political decision to reclassify. He also said that the original decision to classify it as prescription-only was political as well.

What concerned me—and it was interesting that the Minister quoted our dissenting opinion in the select committee report as being what he took to be flattery—the reason that we extended the commentary on his contribution was because he said to us it was better to focus on evidence that was available rather than to try and get more evidence about impacted communities. I think that’s a really worrying attitude towards the meth problem. I think it does bring to bear some of the concerns raised by Te Pāti Māori about the most marginalised; the most vulnerable communities, some of whom did have time to put in submissions—very thoughtful submissions and very clearly set out submissions—about the devastating impact on their communities to their own lives from some of them. Also, the fact that drug addicts are not rational, that addiction is not a rational thing, and we are only hazarding a guess when we apply a kind of rational cost-benefit analysis to whether meth is cheaper from the border or whether people will produce it.

The other element to this was that we included comments where the Minister had said that shopping around did not work—the shopping-around registers that were used in Australia didn’t work—but he was going to keep an eye on this over this winter. Well, I’m not sure how the Minister can keep an eye on whether organised crime is shopping around for pseudoephedrine if the registers are not there—it simply cannot be done. So I’m not sure what other intel he has on that, but I’d be really interested to see what process he is going to use to keep an eye on the shopping-around question.

As has been mentioned, the select committee process was truncated. The health policy development process appeared to be truncated, and that concerns me because we have the appearance of a democratic kind of process—whether it’s gone to select committee—but submitters only had a week or so to submit. The questions that we asked were probably deeper, I think, than the officials had expected us to ask; they had to go away and come back. When we asked them closely about the numbers of pharmacists they had consulted, we were told it was fewer than 10. Again, further questioning made us aware that the particular focus group—they couldn’t even say how many fewer than 10 people there were in that group, so it could have been only one or two pharmacists where the consultation was relying on that as being the voice of pharmacy. To me, that is just inadequate, and it shows the kind of time pressures that they were under from their Minister.

I really did appreciate the thoughtful submissions from submitters, particularly the New Zealand Drug Foundation, who do such an excellent job to provide evidence-based and very clearly set out rationale for their thinking. They did support this bill, which has helped to sway my opinion in favour of supporting it, but, equally, we did hear from people who had experienced meth in their lives as well, and they did have an impact on us.

So the mitigations they suggested around Te Ara Oranga, the rehabilitation programmes being extended, are really important. We heard from the Drug Foundation that close to 50 percent of those who are incarcerated on meth-related charges have an ADHD diagnosis. I would add to the calls from my colleague the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall that not only do we need to make treatment easier for ADHD, we certainly need to make diagnosis cheaper and more easily available. It’s currently only through a psychiatrist—very expensive—or long waiting times in the public health system. So we don’t know what the true figure is of those incarcerations and the role that ADHD plays, not only in meth use and purchase but also in crime generally.

I think there are issues around the IT that we’re being told is being developed that will help us to monitor some of the risks around this. We have no timing on that, and that is why we, as a select committee, have said that we plan to follow up with the Ministry of Health and Te Whatu Ora on this. We expect to receive an update on how they’re progressing with the implementation of a monitoring system by the end of this year. I’d just really like that recorded in the Hansard, because I, for one, will be making sure that we do get some information from them.

But I think the real issue here is seeing the truncated process and the quite casual way that the concerns of impacted communities have been dealt with by the Minister and some members opposite, that we’re not really looking at the real issue of what is this National Government doing to address meth. It’s interesting that the Minister of Customs has just spoken to address her real concerns, and yet her ministry right now is going through voluntary redundancies. There are 1,200 Customs staff throughout New Zealand, and the New Zealand Public Service Association has said that this redundancy process, these cuts to that public service are hamstringing Customs’ ability to keep harmful drugs out of New Zealand. So what are they doing about that? In an environment of 6.5 percent cuts, and the same to policing, what are they doing?

I would just follow that up with some words that were read in this House in 2009 where a member of this House said, “‘P’ is a seriously addictive, viciously destructive drug. It’s hugely damaging to those who take it and the people who share their lives. It comes hand in hand with violence. It allows gangs and organized crime to flourish. It entices young people into criminal careers. P hurts not just users and their families but also law-abiding New Zealanders who suffer from the crime it creates.” Those words were from the Rt Hon John Key, the then Prime Minister.

We’ve heard from the Minister of Customs tonight that that problem has ballooned. We have heard that this Government wants to make cold and drug medication available. That’s great; we support that, but our question to this National-led Government is: what are you doing about the real issue of meth so that it isn’t coming in cheaper, so that young people aren’t getting into meth, so that it isn’t affecting all of our communities, including my own down in Taieri, and so that parties, like the Māori Party, are concerned to even allow the pseudoephedrine change to go through? We are not seeing leadership on the meth issue, we are not seeing leadership on drugs, we are not seeing the changes that we need to make sure that the gangs are disempowered. That is the real question before this House tonight, but, having said that, I will support this bill.

Before I start my speech, I would like to acknowledge all the members of the Health Committee for their time and effort on this bill and also for their constructive feedback as well. This is a perfect example of members of Parliament working together to achieve the best outcome for all New Zealanders. Let’s go back to this bill.

This bill reclassifies pseudoephedrine from a class B2 to a class C3 drug, controlled drugs, under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 so that the cold and flu products containing pseudoephedrine can be sold in pharmacies without a prescription. This allows New Zealanders access to one of the most effective cold and flu medicines and will help to improve people’s welfare when they are unwell.

So, during the select committee process, we received submissions from 169 individuals and nine organisations. Most organisations, including pharmaceutical industry boards and drug harm prevention groups, indicated support for this bill in their submissions. As an elected MP, I also go the extra mile to gather more information and feedback from my local pharmacies and pharmacists. The overall feedback is very positive and they are supportive of this bill. I also need to acknowledge there’s some concern raised by the pharmacists and pharmacy owners as well.

So one of the major concerns may be the production of meth using pseudoephedrine. So, actually, during the select committee process, we have been informed that there is little value to people interested in commercially supplying meth, and there are now cheaper and easier ways to manufacture it. This means that making pseudoephedrine products more available will have little effect on the New Zealand drug market. This position is also supported by advice we received from the Ministry of Health, which consulted with the New Zealand Police, the New Zealand Customs Service, and the National Drug Intelligence Bureau.

Also, another concern is about the safety of pharmacists, of it being misused. But let me remind everyone here, pseudoephedrine will remain a controlled drug and can only be prescribed by an authorised pharmacist prescriber who has undergone the required training and education. This will equip pharmacists with tools to identify and refuse service to anyone showing the intent to improper use of pseudoephedrine. Furthermore, according to this bill, the importation of pseudoephedrine by mail and online shipping will also rightly remain unlawful.

Also, we got a lot of concern on how to assess the safety for pharmacists as well. So we’ve been informed that pharmacists are not required to stock pseudoephedrine products, and we support pharmacists’ rights to make this choice. We trust pharmacists to make judgments about what is best for them and their customers.

Also, we were talking about monitoring the sales of pseudoephedrine products. We are pleased to learn that the Ministry of Health is working with Health New Zealand to explore options for improving the uptake and standardisation of a nationwide electronic dispensing system. This allows us to monitor the sales of pseudoephedrine products in real time, and that can minimise the improper use of the drugs.

Therefore, I think this bill actually strikes the right balance between accessing and protecting the public against improper use. Therefore, I’m here to support this bill. Thank you.

I was just commenting that all this talk about colds made me feel like my nose was running, so excuse me if I feel like some pseudoephedrine. We’ve heard a robust debate tonight about various aspects of a bill that most people are supporting, and I think that if we sum that up somehow, the three themes are that the bill will be supported; however, the process, to date, has been truncated, and it’s a real missed opportunity to have not had a more robust process so that some of the potential risks that have been identified could have been mitigated or that the committee and this House could have had the benefit of hearing from people, hearing from experts, having some more information from agencies and departments into how they may have put together some sort of support around those potential risks. And the third theme, I think, which has come through quite clearly even more recently is that within a culture of cuts, how can we be sure that when these agencies and these departments are facing pressure, they don’t drop the ball with some of those assumptions that are being made tonight?

As we’ve said, Labour will be supporting this bill. It’s in line with our history, as has been demonstrated in the previous Parliament, of being a fan of flexible regulation in relation to medicines. Also, it’s congruent with our previous moves towards encouraging pharmacies to do more in their space and to take on more treatments, as demonstrated by both the Therapeutic Products Act and the minor ailments scheme of the last Government.

But, as previous colleagues have said, I think those three main risks—and I won’t go over them in great detail, but how will we ensure that pseudoephedrine is safely stored? We’ve heard the fact that it’s going to be in such quantities that it’s not even viable or practical to put it under lock and key as we do with many other controlled drugs. I think the issue around tracking it and the issue around having that online, real-time register, as they do in Queensland, is a real missed opportunity for this Parliament not to have sought more information about that. You know, that’s an innovation that could have been used in various different ways, and I think that’s a real shame that we didn’t take that on.

Also, we’ve heard particularly from the Māori Party and the Green Party about the need to never lose sight of the fact that we are here to look at the drivers of addiction, and what are the plans for treating those underlying addictions?

There’s also been a lot of talk about common sense, that there’s a common-sense approach, and whilst that might sound good, common sense has never been a huge leader in terms of things always turning out well, hence the fact that it is our job to not assume that people are rational actors, to not assume that when we’re talking about addiction and when we’re talking about comorbidities, with people with ADHD being the largest consumers of meth, for instance, there’s this linear assumption that a rational decision-making process will take place. So I think that that is a shame. However, we will support this bill, because, at the end of the day, you know, it is important that people are able to get the medications that they need.

My final reservation is the fact that we’ve talked about pseudoephedrine as being a decongestant, which it is. It’s also got that stimulatory side effect which just peps us up and helps us feel better without necessarily addressing the underlying cold. Hopefully, people don’t go back to the good old days where they just went to work and spread their germs around everywhere. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I stand in front of you today to support the second reading of this amendment bill, for three reasons. One, I support this bill because it addresses the current challenges faced by New Zealanders who really just needed to get some effective and easy and fast-acting medicine so that they can manage their general health and wellbeing. Secondly, I also support this bill because it’s actually very straightforward: it’s just restoring the settings, and matches a range of other countries—such as the UK, US, Canada, and Australia. It’s very straightforward because, ultimately, it is still the pharmacies who have the ultimate choice to stock or not to stock this product. They decide, whether it’s based on economical, welfare, safety, business, or operational reasons, whether they will stock it. And my third reason to support this bill is there is evidence that we’ve seen that it has limited scale of risk, even if the products are made available over the counter. So, with those three reasons, I support this legislation to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’d like to speak to the Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill. Twenty-five years since methamphetamine burst on to the scene in New Zealand, I think you’d be hard-pushed to find someone who hasn’t seen the devastation that it delivers. I was living in Auckland at the time and I saw it firsthand: the horrible toll it took and the horrible toll it continues to take to this day. It’s doing huge damage to individuals, to families, and to communities—and it’s damage that is irreversible in many cases. So we need to be certain that decisions we make don’t exacerbate that, and that requires really good political process and due diligence at select committee. We need to be careful about speeding things up.

I’ve got an article here that I’ve been reading from the New Zealand Herald that talks about some of the risks associated with bringing pseudoephedrine products back into pharmacies. It says here, and I quote, “Luxon said [that] the risk of pharmacies being targeted had been a matter discussed by Seymour and Police Minister Mark Mitchell to ensure the issue was monitored. Luxon’s comments appeared to surprise Mitchell, who said he and Seymour hadn’t had any conversations about it but assumed the Prime Minister was referring to communication between Mitchell’s office and Seymour’s office. The Herald has confirmed no such communication occurred between the two offices and the only correspondence Luxon could be referring to was conversations held in Cabinet. Nevertheless, Mitchell said he had received no advice from police expressing concern about the ban reversal and its potential to lead to a crime spike against pharmacies.”—no advice—“He said pharmacies wouldn’t receive financial aid for security once the ban had gone, but accepted that could be revised if a problem arose.”

Hon Shane Jones: Irrelevant.

REUBEN DAVIDSON: So I think it’s critical to the conversation, as opposed to irrelevant. I think our local pharmacies need to be looked after and protected, and I think that taking this action without having the conversations with the appropriate representative agencies and organisations places them at greater risk.

One of the members earlier said that some pharmacists can choose not to stock pseudoephedrine. Sure, that’s true. But do people find that out when they pop in to purchase some pseudoephedrine, or do they find that out halfway through a ram raid when they’ve already done the damage to the store, they’ve already smashed in the window, and they do even more damage looking for the product that they’re there to get? So these are just some of the risks—some of the risks.

So, in recognition of those, I think it is crucial that the select committee process should have been able to examine the issues and hear from submitters. What we’ve heard instead is that it was a very rushed process. They missed the chance to hear valuable evidence and there was a very small number of pharmacy representatives involved in that conversation.

The Government evidence about no increase in meth-related crime doesn’t seem that enough investigation was carried out there. I think what we’re looking at there is the provision for safe storage of pseudoephedrine within pharmacies and whether small businesses—and we know the importance of those small businesses like chemists and pharmacists in our communities, and we saw through the pandemic how crucial those businesses became to the health and protection of our communities. So it’s fine to say that those businesses don’t get support, but if they don’t get support, then they place themselves at greater risk by not being able to have pseudoephedrine in safe storage inside their premises. I think that’s an unfair risk to place our small businesses in.

I think there’s also unanswered questions around how regulation will work under the Medicines Act, and I think there’s a missed opportunity of a register for pharmacists. The bigger question is what this Government has planned to address meth addiction in our communities. So my plea would be: take the time to get it right, to ensure the benefits outweigh the potential harm, make sure there are some constructive policies in the pipeline that actually address the very real concerns of pseudoephedrine and meth addiction. So, whilst I support this bill, I reiterate the need to support individuals, families, and communities affected by P.

I rise in support of this Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill. I’m delighted to be able to support it, given that I remember, as a doctor, how incredibly frustrating it was when my patients could no longer access this medication. Also, I was very concerned, when the effective ban came in, that there would be no access to the only really scientifically validated treatment to prevent barotrauma to the tympanic membrane for those who are flying frequently, like pilots. Some of my patients had to end up sourcing pseudoephedrine from overseas to be able to protect their ears when they were constantly going up and down and getting different pressure changes in their ears. So this is the only medication that has ever been shown to be effective in adults at reducing that risk, and the thing that prevents complete rupture of the tympanic membrane—that’s been shown on systematic review. So it is a very effective medication.

As a lot of people have noted around the House, there are potential problems, of course, and we have to look at the potential mitigations that we can go through for that. I note that the idea of the register is a very useful one. I also have been one of those people who’ve seen the effects of meth in family members, and it is a scourge on our society. That being said, this is a very sensible approach to something that hadn’t made any difference to that scourge, and I commend the bill to the House.

Members, the time has come for me to leave the Chair. The House will adjourn until 2 p.m. tomorrow.

The House adjourned at 9.57 p.m.