Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Associate Minister of Health) on behalf of the Hon Jim Anderton (Associate Minister of Health): I move, That the Misuse of Drugs (Classification of BZP) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This bill removes the legal market for so-called party pills that contain the drug benzylpiperazine, commonly referred to as BZP, and also related substances. Today I would again thank all members of the Health Committee for their valuable work on this bill. They had to tackle a complex public health and justice issue within a tight time frame. I know that the majority of us here understand the need to move as quickly as is practicably possible to respond to the harms associated with the misuse of psychoactive substances, and a proper evidence-informed process has been followed in the case of BZP.

This House will be aware that in 2004 the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs informed us that although there was insufficient evidence available at that time to justify a ban on BZP, there was a need to place some controls on the sale and advertising of BZP while further information into its effects was gathered. The 2005 amendment to the Misuse of Drugs Act provided just that, with a new restricted substances schedule allowing for BZP to be sold only to and by people aged 18 years and over, as well as placing controls on advertising and a ban on free of charge distribution of BZP. The enactment of this schedule remains an important achievement and provides New Zealand with a valuable tool to place legislative controls on new drugs that it would otherwise not have sufficient evidence to ban under the Misuse of Drugs Act. BZP and related substances, however, do now have such evidence to warrant a ban, and therefore the continued consideration of this bill is very timely.

This current bill originally had an enactment date of 18 December 2007. However, as members of this House will know, there was a significant amount of work before us at that time and it was not possible to progress this bill any further before the year drew to a close. For this reason it was necessary that a Supplementary Order Paper was drafted to amend the original enactment date of this bill to a new date in 2008. I have been asked why a set date for the enactment of this legislation is necessary and why the enactment could not have been linked to the day after the legislation receives the Royal assent, as is consistent with the majority of other bills we pass into law. The answer is simple: a set date in the legislation provides for certainty around when this classification will come into force. There are a large number of party pill retailers in New Zealand, and having a specific date in the legislation allows for better clarity around the obligations of these retailers under the law. It also provides more clarity to users of BZP and related substances regarding the exact date that the amnesty for possession and use offences will expire.

On advice from the Attorney-General and the Ministry of Health, the date of 1 April 2008 was chosen as this was seen as an appropriate length of time to allow for both the ministry to properly communicate this change in legal status and the industry to comply. I am pleased that the members supported this important Supplementary Order Paper during the Committee stage. The Green Party also chose to introduce an amendment to this House that would have delayed the banning of these substances, deemed by experts to pose a moderate risk of harm, by a further month, until 1 May 2008. The Green Party justified this delay on the grounds that the party pill industry needed more time to facilitate the recall of its products. However, it needs to be noted that in the time since, the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs advised us in December 2006 that available evidence commissioned by this Government now shows that BZP and related substances pose a moderate risk of harm.

There have been two public consultations on the proposals in this bill. There has also been extensive debate in the media, as well as in press releases from the Ministry of Health. No one in this industry, in my view, is able to claim that there has not been sufficient warning of the ban. Furthermore, it needs to be noted that this bill was originally intended to be enacted before the end of last year, and I am advised that some in the party pill industry did recall their products in order to comply with the pending legislation at that time. I have also recently received a letter from one distributor stating that the enactment date of 1 April would indeed allow them time to complete an orderly, thorough, and safe withdrawal of these products from the market. Thankfully this House had the sense to vote down that proposed amendment, which would have continued to expose New Zealanders to these harmful substances for an additional month.

A Supplementary Order Paper was introduced by the National Party, which sought to amend this bill to require the expert advisory committee to review the effects of this classification and report back to the House in 2½ years’ time. In considering this proposal it is important to understand that the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs is mandated under the Misuse of Drugs Act to report to the Minister with responsibility for the National Drug Policy—not to the House of Representatives but to the Minister. I consider that members of the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs have enough on their plate already without being subjected to additional pressures from this House. Additionally, the member who put forward the Supplementary Order Paper justified it on the basis that action against illicit drug use needs to be evidence-based. On that view, I agree in full. It is for this reason that our actions on BZP to date have been informed by the best available evidence and the continued advice of the expert advisory committee and the Ministry of Health.

Membership of the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs, which has considered BZP on nine separate occasions since 2004, consists of, among others, respected leaders in the fields of pharmacology, toxicology, psychology, community medicine, and addiction treatment. I have always respected the advice of this committee, and I find it concerning that this member would put forward a Supplementary Order Paper to bring into doubt the evidence base behind the bill that we are considering today. Furthermore, and importantly, the Supplementary Order Paper was not necessary as it does not take an amendment to the Misuse of Drugs Act to require the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs to reconsider the classification of BZP after this ban comes into effect. The Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs is mandated to consider not only new substances as they emerge but also the classification of currently controlled drugs as new research becomes available. I can ask the committee to reconsider BZP at any time, and members of the public can write to the Ministry of Health to request that items such as BZP are considered for the agenda in future meetings of the committee. It is my view therefore that the Supplementary Order Paper proposed by the National Party would have unnecessarily complicated this classification process, should it have received enough votes during the Committee stage to go ahead.

The continued legal availability of party pill products containing BZP and related substances is concerning and cannot possibly be condoned by members of this House when we know that the available evidence indicates a moderate risk of harm. It is for this reason that the bill must be progressed into law. I believe that party pills will virtually disappear from New Zealand following the enactment of this bill. This legislation will remove the legal access to BZP and related substances. It will allow the police and the Customs Service to prevent these substances from being imported and marketed, and it will prevent them from causing the moderate risk of harm that experts have identified. I would like to acknowledge the great work and determination of my colleague the Hon Jim Anderton in nurturing and guiding this bill through the House. I commend this bill to the House and support its passage through its final reading.

JACQUI DEAN (National—Otago) : Can I say, Madam Assistant Speaker, what a pleasure it is to see you in the Chair, and thank you for acknowledging me.

I believe we have come a long way in the 5 or 6 years since benzylpiperazine (BZP) first came on to the market in New Zealand. Before I became a member of this House, BZP-based drugs were commonly referred to as herbal highs or “herbies”, which is what the young people still call them, the perception being that they were herbal and therefore harmless. Of course, that perception was reinforced by the fact that they were legal and largely unregulated. What a long way we have come in those 5 or 6 years. Even in the 2½ years since I have been a member of Parliament I believe that society’s concern and understanding about BZP and its medical and social effects have been crystallised, and today we are finally addressing the issue of BZP by way of the Misuse of Drugs (Classification of BZP) Amendment Bill.

The bill is very short. It simply changes the classification of the family of drugs known as benzylpiperazine from a class D restricted substance to a class C classification, which is the same as that for cannabis. I think it is appropriate that the classification is the same as that for cannabis, because now the law will recognise that benzylpiperazine and party pills are every bit as dangerous as cannabis. The bill introduces a 6-month amnesty period for the personal use of benzylpiperazine. It also gives the party pill industry advance warning of when the ban is to take place—not on the usual date of when it is signed by the Governor-General but a few days after. The rationale is that this will allow party pill manufacturers and retailers time to take these items off their shelves. That is unnecessary, of course. The industry has known that the writing has been on the wall. For goodness’ sake, the Minister has been going on about it for long enough! The industry, which is a big industry, has had plenty of time to get used to the idea that BZP will at least become illegal, so in my view that consideration was unnecessary. Having said that, we do support the bill.

Benzylpiperazines are already banned in the United States. New Zealand is lagging well behind.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs): Excuse me, I am sorry to interrupt the member. I ask that we do not have conversations in the House with members standing up. Thank you.

JACQUI DEAN: Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker—you are so considerate. BZP is banned in the United States. BZP and the family of benzylpiperazines are also banned by our close neighbour Australia, as well as Japan, Denmark, and Sweden. One of our exports, which we should not be proud of, is BZP products, which are exported via the Internet to countries like the UK. It is a thriving market. I sincerely hope that that trade is also shut down.

I acknowledge the work of the Health Committee. I understand that with an issue such as this there are divergent views, which are expressed in the committee’s report. The committee members reviewed my petition and also my submission to them. I believe that my point of view was heard, and I am grateful to them for that.

To give just a little bit of information about the benzylpiperazine family, it has become very popular in the last few years due largely to its legal status of being only a restricted drug and, therefore, the perception of its safety. As I said when I first rose to my feet, that perception of safety has been very quickly eroded during the last few years. The family of BZP is mixed to mimic the effects of methamphetamine. It gives users a high, if you like, with exaggerated blood pressure, heart rate, and metabolism. Unfortunately, other side effects—particularly when taken with alcohol and other drugs—can include anxiety, collapse, agitation, nausea, and grand mal seizures. The concern of doctors is well documented—particularly that of Dr Paul Gee of the Christchurch accident and emergency department. He has been concerned for many years over the presentation of patients into his hospital.

The advocates of BZP—and we must remember that this is a $30 million-a-year industry, which is a good little earner—claim that it offers users of illegal drugs a safer alternative, and would therefore displace illegal drug use. Unfortunately for them a university study has disputed this myth. It shows that party pill users are 10 times more likely to be users of LSD, Ecstasy, and Ritalin. So that myth—for that is what it is—has been dispelled. The author of that report, Kate Bryson, concluded that: “In terms of reducing harm by reducing illicit substance use, BZP party pills are not fulfilling their purpose.” For drug users, they are “simply another substance on the … menu.” This conclusion is shared by other researchers, who have noted that an increase in BZP-related presentations to Auckland Hospital did not reduce the incidence of methamphetamine-related presentations. So any myth that BZP reduces the incidence of illegal drug use is just that—a myth.

BZP’s legal status is finally about to change with the imminent passing of this Misuse of Drugs (Classification of BZP) Amendment Bill—and I am very grateful for it. I am grateful that the Associate Minister of Health Jim Anderton has finally succumbed to pressure to outlaw this drug. Right back in 2004 the Minister first acknowledged the harm BZP causes, but it has taken 4 years until he has finally brought legislation to Parliament—not without continual lobbying on my part—and today I am very happy to be standing here during the third reading of this bill. Unfortunately a market for BZP and other drugs has grown exponentially in New Zealand, and as legislators we must face the fact that while Parliament has delayed passing this legislation a market has been created, and that market will be filled with other drugs. We also now have a culture whereby many children hold the view that in order to have a good time one must first take a pill. How regrettable is that?

My colleague Dr Paul Hutchison attempted to introduce a Supplementary Order Paper that, I believe, provides a very sensible way forward after the passage of this bill. Dr Hutchison proposed that this legislation be reviewed within 2 years and 6 months of the date of its enactment. Under his Supplementary Order Paper the review of the banning of BZP would have been undertaken by the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs—the very committee that the Minister has relied on so heavily for advice in bringing this bill to the House today. My colleague Dr Paul Hutchison proposed that what is really needed to finish off this bill is to look at the effects it will have. We understand that the Minister is now considering the reclassification of another drug—Salvia divinorum. We do not need another piecemeal approach to this issue. Experience with BZP classification has shown that the Minister is reluctant to act. Several years may go by between the intention to do something about Salvia divinorum and the actual reclassification of this drug. What is needed is a review of the Misuse of Drugs Act. The Minister has promised a review of the Misuse of Drugs Act, but instead we have another piecemeal bill. So in the absence of any policy work on behalf of the Minister that I can see—and I would be very happy to be corrected—we have, yet again, a lot of talk but no evidence of any real work. The amendment proposed by Dr Paul Hutchison would at least have given this Parliament a chance to evaluate the effects of banning BZP.

I will conclude today by reflecting that society has shown a good deal of concern about what has become an open legal drug culture in New Zealand. This bill, which National supports, goes part of the way towards addressing those concerns. I believe that the Minister had the chance to do so much more, but he has failed in that. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Hon LUAMANUVAO WINNIE LABAN (Minister of Pacific Island Affairs) : Kia ora, talofa lava, and warm Pacific greetings. It is my pleasure to stand and speak in support of the third reading of the Misuse of Drugs (Classification of BZP) Amendment Bill.

This bill amends the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 to make it illegal to possess and use, sell, supply, import, export, or manufacture benzylpiperazine (BZP), phenylpiperazine, and related substances. These substances are the active ingredients in the majority of pills commonly known as party pills or herbals. The purpose of this legislation is to prevent the misuse of drugs by controlling harmful substances through the classification of drugs according to their degree of harmfulness.

Party pills—or herbals, as they are also known—came on to the scene in New Zealand around 2000, and their popular use has increased over the years. A walk down Cuba Street or Courtenay Place, or down streets right around our country, illustrates how accessible these pills have become, to our families and our communities, and, more important, to our young people. There are shops dedicated to selling the pills, with dairies, 24-hour service stations, and nightclubs stocking them so that they are readily available. As the popularity of party pills has grown, an increasing number of manufacturers of these products have entered the market.

A 2006 Massey University study found that nearly 60 percent of 20 to 24-year-olds surveyed had tried party pills. As the popularity of these pills increased, real concern was raised over the potential health effects—let alone all the other effects—of these pills. Reports have also shown that a wide range of people are using party pills, from young professionals to senior citizens, who use the pills to make themselves feel more alert or on a high. The party pills are sold under a wide range of product names, and the term “herbals” implies that they are good for people. It is thought that a large number of people use BZP because it is legal and readily available.

I join with my colleagues in congratulating the Hon Jim Anderton on his role in this, and on the public consultation that it has enabled. He has shown real leadership and stewardship of legislation in this area not only with this bill but also with the 2005 Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill. That amendment made it an offence to sell and supply pills to people under 18 years of age or to give away or advertise the pills, thus enabling controls on BZP while research was carried out into this drug.

The classification of BZP, and the harm of the drug’s misuse, have been extensively considered in recent years. This bill has resulted from this research and from a recommendation made to the Minister of Health by the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs that BZP be classified as a class C1 controlled drug—the same as cannabis—under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975, as it poses a moderate risk to the health of those using it. In making its classification recommendation, the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs has ensured that its decision is evidence-based, appropriate for New Zealand’s domestic situation, and consistent with international obligations. When introducing the third reading, Minister O’Connor commented that the committee’s composition represented all professional areas, including a representative of those who treat consumers of drugs. Our Government has acted on expert advice and has taken this recommendation very, very seriously, and this bill seeks to give effect to that.

Because party pills have been legally available for a number of years, a 6-month amnesty for those who have less than 5 grams or 100 tablets for their personal use, as opposed to supply, will remain in place from the commencement date of the legislation on 1 April 2008, ending on 30 September 2008. More important, this bill ensures that all New Zealanders are protected from potential harm and from the effects on themselves, their families, and their communities caused by BZP, phenylpiperazine, and related substances, which are the active ingredients in party pills. For that reason, I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) : On behalf of New Zealand First, I rise to support the third reading of the Misuse of Drugs (Classification of BZP) Amendment Bill. It is my pleasure to rise and support this bill.

This is an issue that needed to be finalised—from the manufacturer’s point of view, the user’s point of view, and, of course, from Parliament’s point of view. Further action needed to be taken; once the wheels had been set in motion the whole situation needed to be clarified. We in this House all know that this is a multimillion-dollar industry, and it had geared itself up for a ban on 18 December. That did not eventuate, and, in fairness to the industry, another specific date has been set. The writing was on the wall. The date that is now set is very clear, it is specific, and there is no room for any misinterpretation.

In New Zealand First we received some information from the Social Tonics Association that recall procedures had been put in place by many manufacturers for the disposal of their existing stock. I understand that these procedures will be put in place again so that the products can be disposed of in a safe and proper manner. It is really important that this is done. It is not a little job to close down a multimillion-dollar industry in a short time; it has been around for 7 years or so. There needed to be sufficient time to do this in a planned manner. I was very pleased to see the professional recall procedures that have been put in place, and I think that the Social Tonics Association can be quite proud of what it has done. The very last thing we need is for this type of product to be dumped in local rubbish bins where it can be pulled out by anyone—and we know that a lot of people fossick around our rubbish cans now. Of course, if it is in a rubbish can, it can also be consumed by anyone, and that is definitely not an ideal situation. Being part of a manufacturing environment in my previous life, I was very pleased to see this responsible response to the recall of these particular products, and the Social Tonics Association and other manufacturers have to be commended for the actions they have taken in drawing up the procedures and for trying to follow them through.

In New Zealand First, we believe that Parliament—this Parliament, any Parliament—has to act on the advice of the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs. Otherwise, what is the point of having it and of wasting the advice of the experts on that committee? They are the experts, they have all of the relevant qualifications, and we need to take their advice. When we look at it, they have verified what most of us suspected: this product cannot be guaranteed to be absolutely harmless. Although there are those who say that it is harmless, the bottom line is that there are no scientific studies carried out on this drug by any reputable agency proving that it is safe.

Earlier in the week I went into a pharmacy and was absolutely amazed to see a product that claimed on the header card of the display and on the product as well that it was “Tested on Australians”. I did not want to believe what I was reading. Obviously, Australians are quite happy to be lab rats, or perhaps they were unwittingly lab rats for some company that was testing anti-hangover pills, of all things. I thought this was a really amazing piece of advertising. As a consumer, it would give me no real confidence, at all, that it had been tested on Australians and found to be safe. Yet when I looked at the display, I saw that plenty of the product had been sold. New Zealand First believes that we can be really pleased that party pills have never ever been displayed or advertised with that cavalier attitude, even though, when we look at it, the industry could have said that the product had been “Tested on New Zealanders”.

We realise that unfortunately this legislation will not immediately stop the party pill culture, or the widespread consumption by young people of some other product that promises the same type of high or buzz. Most of our young people who are into this type of drug taking will consume the new product that comes online.

I was talking to an elderly person who blamed all of the baby-boomers and the availability of prescription drugs for this phenomenon. Apparently, we pop pills freely for headaches, depression, earaches, and sore throats, and afterwards we feel quite good that we have actually taken the pills. This person said we were modelling the behaviour for our young people. I thought it was quite a tenuous link, but perhaps she had a point.

As we know, the second generation of party pills is well on the way; we read about it last year in the newspapers. We can only hope that the Social Tonics Association and its members will again take a precautionary approach. However, we definitely do not want to see these substances displayed for sale in dairies and garages.

Hone Harawira: Like cigarettes.

BARBARA STEWART: Like cigarettes. The voluntary code for packaging, quality, and quality control that was developed and largely adhered to by the manufacturers of party pills was a step in the right direction, and we have to hope that it will be followed again.

Over the course of this debate we have often had parties talking about the health effects of alcohol and tobacco, and saying that they are just as bad if not worse than the effect of benzylpiperazine. I have no doubt that we will hear from those speakers later on. In New Zealand First we ask why we would add another substance to this list, if this product had not been banned. Enough grief is caused by alcohol and tobacco. Something had to be done and we are trying to do something here, so we support this bill. It never ceases to amaze me—and, more than likely, others in this House—that manufacturers never had to prove that party pills were safe before they were put out for sale, as happens with food and medicine. We would like to see this loophole corrected.

New Zealand First supports this bill. We are pleased to see it reach this stage, and we will watch what happens in the wider industry with a lot of interest. Thank you.

METIRIA TUREI (Green) : As this House knows, the Green Party policy on these matters is about reducing harm. We are the only party in this House that has a policy premised on a scientific and evidence-based approach to managing drugs, including alcohol and tobacco, which are of course the most damaging drugs in our society and our community. We know that drug use can be problematic. But we know that not all drug use is problematic, and that the law has to deal with these issues on a rational, scientific basis rather than on one based on prejudice and old views.

I was saddened to hear the Associate Minister Damien O’Connor describe in his speech this afternoon the Green Party amendment to this bill. We put up an amendment that would provide small-business people who are running party pill businesses with the time and opportunity to comply with the law. They know that they will need to comply with the change. They want to comply with the law, they do not want to be lawbreakers, and they are not lawbreakers—until the law is passed they certainly are not lawbreakers. They want to have the time to do a good job, especially if they have to reconfigure their businesses, reorganise their finances, fire people who are working for them, and deal with all those concerns.

Minister O’Connor, presumably speaking for Mr Anderton, stood up and said that the Government refused to support our amendment to extend this time period because the businesses—the industry—knew that there was a law coming, and therefore they should have been prepared and that is just tough. That reminded me of a member of Parliament from some years ago, when I was a teenager, who was well known for making law by decree, and it occurs to me to ask whether Jim Anderton is a Muldoon Mini-Me in this respect. Is he a Muldoon Mini-Me who will decide that the law should change, because he thinks it is a good idea, then go out amongst the people and tell them that the law is changing and that he is going to do all this fantastic work, make promises to have the law changed by a particular date, fail miserably to achieve that goal, misinform the public, and have no concerns for the businesses who are quite entitled to rely not on a Muldoon Mini-Me decree but on the law of the House and of the land as it stands?

That is what Mr Anderton did. He should be ashamed and terribly embarrassed by his foolishness. One does not make law by decree in this country. I tell Mr Anderton that this is a democracy, and therefore when the law is in one state, businesses are entitled to rely on it, as is the community. Then, when that law changes, they are entitled to have some time and opportunity to make the changes so that they can comply. We do not need a Muldoon Mini-Me in this House making law by decree for this country.

I was also surprised to hear the Associate Minister say that he believed that this law change would eliminate benzylpiperazine (BZP) from this country, and that there would be no BZP any more in New Zealand, which again highlighted just how utterly irrational his approach to controlling drugs in our country is. Can he point to any single drug ever that has been eliminated from the population in its entirety simply as a result of a law change towards prohibition? Can he?

Heather Roy: No.

METIRIA TUREI: There is silence from the Government benches. The fact is that my colleague Heather Roy is quite right. There simply is no drug that has ever been eliminated from a society simply because it was made illegal. In fact, the evidence shows quite the contrary—that, indeed, drugs proliferate under a regime of prohibition.

Drugs proliferate under prohibition because they are in the control of unregulated entrepreneurs who see an opportunity to make considerable amounts of money out of an illegal substance that there is still an enormous demand for in our community. Who is going to regulate those entrepreneurs? No one. Who is going to control the access that people might have to those entrepreneurs and their new products? Well, one could say the police will do so, but I do not see them doing a particularly fantastic job when it comes to other drugs. Have they eliminated methamphetamine from our society because it is illegal? No, they have failed to do that. The police do not even manage properly to control the legal drugs that are in this country. They do not even properly manage and make sure that young people do not get access to tobacco, for example. So how are the police also expected to eliminate from the community, and from these black markets, clever little entrepreneurs who are now going to engage in the proliferation of BZP to our young people, when they have no capacity at all to talk to them sensibly about the health consequences of what they are doing, the kinds of products they are taking, the damage they could be doing to themselves, and the ways they could keep themselves safe? None of that will be available under this regime, because Mr Anderton and his party are relying on the old, failed policies of the past—the proven failed policies of the past—in making illegal a substance that Mr Anderton could have controlled from the beginning.

Here we go back to Mr Anderton’s failure again. He has always had the power to regulate party pills. Party pills as a class D drug can be regulated. Where they are sold can be regulated. Who they are sold to, and the content of the drugs or of the pills, can be regulated. The packaging and the health information were available to Mr Anderton to control if he chose to do so, but he has failed to control and put in place those regulations in the time that BZP has been legal. I raise serious questions as to why he failed to protect our community when he had the power to do so.

The fact is that he failed to protect our community and our young people, because it was politically useful for him to have no controls so he could justify the continued failed policy of the prohibition of BZP. He put our young people at risk on purpose in order to meet his own political objectives. That is disgraceful behaviour by a Minister. That is particularly disgraceful when one is talking about the health of young New Zealanders. Hundreds and thousands of young New Zealanders are put at risk by Mr Anderton because of his failure to properly regulate and control BZP when he could have done so.

Now that problem has been exacerbated by his continual perpetuation of the myth that prohibition will eliminate these drugs from our society. He has now handed over that control to people who cannot be trusted with the health of our young New Zealanders.

Hone Harawira: Abdicated his responsibility.

METIRIA TUREI: My colleague Hone Harawira is quite right. He has abdicated his responsibility. There is no justification for that position. There is no evidence for that position. It is irrational to take that position. But because this is an issue about drugs, for some reason it is OK for the Government, through Minister Anderton, to take irrational positions on this issue, and to put the lives and the health of young New Zealanders at risk.

Drugs are not so very important, and Mr Anderton should be made aware of this. Drugs are not the most important thing in the world. But drug policy is a litmus test for political parties. Like the issue of law and order, drug issues are used for electioneering purposes, and this is one of those issues. Jim Anderton will go out on the hustings and say that he has protected our young people, but he has failed them—for electioneering purposes. To meet his own personal desires, whatever they may be, Mr Anderton has failed our young people, failed our country, and failed our communities. He is a disgrace.

HONE HARAWIRA (Māori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) : Tēnā koe. Kia ora, Mr Deputy Speaker. I would like to congratulate the previous speaker on raising a very valid point about the role of the Minister in protecting society, and pointing out his abdication of that responsibility. What has popped up its ugly little head again in this House of hypocrisy, our Parliament of pretence, and our very own den of double standards? Why, it is none other than the Misuse of Drugs (Classification of BZP) Amendment Bill. It is known in some circles as Jim Anderton’s “I’m Dull and Boring (And If I Can’t Be Happy, Then Neither Can You Be Happy) Bill” and in other circles as the “They Ain’t Killing Anyone (Let’s Ban Party Pills Because We’re Not Getting Any Money off Them, But Let’s Allow Alcohol and Cigarettes to Continue to Be Legal Because Although They Are Killing Our Kids by the Thousands Every Year, We Get Heaps of Money off Them Through Taxation) Bill”.

One hundred years ago Sir Māui Pōmare said: “Our effort will be in the direction of the eradication of all things which ensure the demoralisation and decay of the Māori—drunkenness, smoking, gambling, sanitation, diseases of animals—all come within the scope of the new crusade. In a word, we seek the regeneration of the Maori, and unless we effect that, our race is doomed. We will do it, we must.” That statement of intent is a crusade that the Māori Party is also dedicated to, and I repeat those words: “… we seek the regeneration of the Māori, and unless we effect that, our race is doomed.” We too reject the way in which alcohol, tobacco, and gambling are killing our people.

The research has been done and the facts are clear. Alcohol, tobacco, and gambling are demoralising our people and killing our families. That is the difference between an addiction to those substances and using party pills. Forests have been cut down to detail the evidence, the data, and the research on the death, destruction, and family mayhem caused by alcohol, tobacco, and gambling. But benzylpiperazine (BZP) and party pills? No, mate—not even. Nowhere near enough evidence has been produced to justify this Draconian ban on party pills, and nowhere near enough thought has been given to alternative ways of handling them. This bill aims to make it illegal to possess, use, sell, supply, import, export, and manufacture BZP, although there is no evidence that party pills kill and maim thousands of New Zealanders every year, in the way that alcohol and tobacco do—every single year; thousands upon thousands of New Zealanders.

To get a bit more background I looked over a paper written by a whanaunga of mine, Dr Lance O’Sullivan of Ngāti Hau. He is currently employed at Te Hauora o Te Hiku o Te Ika, the first accredited Māori health provider in the country. He talked about seeing the impact of alcohol abuse on whānau: the domestic violence, the unwanted pregnancies, the broken families, the fatal driving accidents, the young men and women with heart and liver diseases, and the depression affecting the older generations. This is the day-to-day reality of a legal but lethal drug that this legislature has allowed to ravage our Māori communities for more than 100 years. Even our tūpuna thought so badly of the stuff that they called it waipiro—quite literally, stinking, rotting water. And Dr O’Sullivan does not need to write another paper in order for us to know that tobacco is doing even more damage than alcohol does.

The Māori Party caucus is new, but we have already built up quite a good reputation in the campaigns against tobacco and P, and the destructive effects of alcohol and gambling on Māori communities. We have come from, and we continue to live within, those very communities, and we know what we are talking about when we talk about the effects of alcohol, tobacco, and gambling. We would laugh at the ridiculous efforts being made to ban party pills, except that we are still crying at the lack of attention being given to the addictions that still kill thousands of New Zealanders, Māori and Pākehā, every single year. Let me be clear again. The Māori Party is opposed to harmful drugs, including alcohol and tobacco. We are equally committed to stopping substance abuse. But just because it is election year, that does not mean we should pander to prejudice.

Let us drop the scaremongering and get to the facts. Following on from a 2007 risk assessment report by the scientific committee of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction on the risks of BZP, last week the centre called upon member States to take measures “appropriate to the relatively low risks of the substance”. Those eight member States, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, and Sweden, already regulate BZP under appropriate legislation. We can contrast that with the other statistics of death. Tobacco smoking kills more than 4,600 New Zealanders every year. By 2020 tobacco will kill 10 million people every year worldwide; that is one person every 8 seconds. Thirty percent of young smokers will eventually be killed by tobacco. And here is one for members: tobacco kills more people than the combined number of deaths from alcohol, drugs, murder, suicide, road crashes, air crashes, poisoning, drowning, fires, falls, lightning, and electrocution.

The Victoria University of Wellington Students Association, members of which would be prime users of party pills, supports the increased regulation and control of the manufacturers of party pills, who have targeted the student body through the commercial marketing and on-campus promotion of their products as “energy supplements” with “medicinal properties” and “life-enhancing effects”, or—the most bizarre claim of all—a claim that their pills are “replacement brain-fuel”. The students association says that the industry is the one that should be targeted, not the users, and that reasonable standards should be imposed on the manufacture, distribution, labelling, and advertising of party pills. Yet for all the facts, it would appear that National and Labour are committed to this ban on party pills.

The facts we have gathered reinforce our view, the Māori Party view expressed in the minority report in the Health Committee’s report on the bill, that a strictly enforced, strongly regulated regime with tighter controls, tighter regulations, health warning labels, controlled access, and quality and quantity controls is a far better first step than prohibition. The Māori Party remains staunchly opposed to this bill and passionately in support of the call to seek the regeneration of our whānau, our hapū, and our iwi through dedicated efforts to restore our health and well-being. Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker.

HEATHER ROY (Deputy Leader—ACT) : The ACT party, like the previous two speakers, has made it very clear through the progress of the Misuse of Drugs (Classification of BZP) Amendment Bill that we oppose it and oppose it vigorously. I congratulate the two previous speakers, Hone Harawira from the Māori Party and Metiria Turei of the Greens, because they are the voices of common sense in our Parliament today.

I think we need to be very careful about what we think we can achieve in this Parliament. As politicians, I feel that we frequently overestimate the effect of lawmaking in matters such as this. I will not go over the discussion on prohibition again, or the alcohol and tobacco debate, but they are very pertinent points. They have already been made very succinctly and well.

We should make no bones about it: prohibition does not work. It has been tried time and time again with absolutely no effect, and all it results in is a thriving black market where substances that are theoretically bad for us reach such inflated prices that they create havoc amongst our communities. That is what we, as politicians, are contemplating putting into place again today. Alcohol and tobacco are the drugs of choice of many people. They are far more dangerous than many other substances we are planning to ban, and that will be the case today with the banning of benzylpiperazine (BZP).

BZP is already regulated, and quite heavily. I have followed the progress of this issue from my introduction to Parliament in 2002. It was shortly after that time that the question arose as to how much BZP should be regulated. In 2002 BZP was not regulated. It was just emerging as a drug of choice for many of our young people. The history is quite interesting. BZP was developed in the 1950s as an anti-worm medication. It was shown to be totally ineffective in that regard, but the side effects of the medication were shown to produce an effect that some people who took the medication liked, and they then used it for that purpose only.

When we bring bills of this nature to Parliament, what exactly is the problem we are trying to solve? That is the question we have to ask ourselves. I have not actually heard that question answered in this Parliament today by any of the parties supporting this legislation. I ask them again, before they vote on this bill, what the problem is that we are trying to solve. If someone can stand up and tell me the answer to that question, then I am prepared to reconsider our stance, but I do not think that anybody can.

All I hear from the Labour members and Jim Anderton are arguments for putting forward this bill in an election year. I think that they are trying to capitalise on the fact that they are pandering to the fears of parents, who have concerns about what their children take, and not just about alcohol. In fact, those members downplay the effects of alcohol and tobacco and focus instead on pills like BZP party pills. So this bill is a bit like the tagging legislation in many respects. Those members are trying to pander to the fear of people in return for a vote in election year.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: What would you do—zip it?

HEATHER ROY: Mr Cosgrove should make no bones about what I would do. I tell Mr Cosgrove that I would leave BZP exactly where it is—as an R18 classification—and I would insist that the law that exists at the moment, the regulation in place, was properly policed. We say to our 18-year-olds that they are old enough to vote and to go off to war but that they are not old enough to say what should go into their bodies, or whether they should have a drink or go and buy a spray-can. [Interruption] We could get started on the boy-racer legislation, I suppose, but I think that it was only the Greens and ACT that took a sensible line on that issue, as well. But I will not be diverted by that.

The law as it exists at the moment is perfectly adequate—that is, to have an R18 classification on BZP tablets, which is then policed effectively. What will happen next? Everybody knows that chemists are very clever people, and they are all ready to go. As soon as BZP is banned, the next wave of substances, which are not yet illegal, will come on to the market and replace it. Mr Cosgrove says they have an answer for that. He will just bring forward a bill every time a new substance comes in. A new bill will come to Parliament, and we will ban the next substance. The next one will be developed, and we will ban that one too. Then the next one will be developed, and we will ban that too. Is that not effective lawmaking! I did not come to Parliament to do that. I came to Parliament to produce a country that I am proud to leave to my children and grandchildren. This sort of lawmaking does not fall into that category.

What will happen next? Well, we are actually empowering the gangs today. We are giving them the ability to become richer and more powerful. We hear all about the gangs from New Zealand First and Labour, and we hear about what Labour will do to stem the gang culture. But what we are doing today is empowering the gangs to make more money. The way to get rid of gangs is to get rid of prohibition, because it is actually the prohibition that enriches the gangs, gives them money, and leads to the violence that we see so much of in New Zealand today. If we really want to have an effect as politicians, then that is exactly what we would do—we would get rid of prohibition. Those members shouting at me from the other side of the House know I am right. They will not stand up and say I am wrong, because they know that what I am saying is right.

MetiriaTurei raised the issue that the Minister is acting irrationally—and he is. He is confused in his thinking if he thinks that banning these substances will make one jot of difference to the problems that, again, still have not been articulated. He should take stock of what he is doing today. He should take stock of the fact that this will not affect one thing. Our young people will still take BZP tablets, or they will find something else to take.

Why is no party here today saying that this bill will be the answer to the problem for all our young people? Why are no members standing up here and saying: “Actually, alcohol is a problem. Why don’t we ban that?”. The reason is that they all enjoy their glass of wine and are not prepared to ban it, because they do not want to forgo it themselves. The real answer, of course, is that banning alcohol would not have any effect either. We should be under no illusions about the dangers and illnesses that alcohol and tobacco cause. Today we are hearing irrational arguments for measures that will be totally ineffective.

ACT opposes this bill and opposes it rationally for all the reasons I have just outlined. We will not see any improvement in youth behaviour as a result of this bill today. All we will see is the production of more and more chemical substances that may or may not do harm to our young people. Those substances will be promoted, and the gangs will have even more power and become wealthier than they are now, because of a silly, irrational law, which I am ashamed we are passing today.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Minister of Immigration) : Before I deal with the issue in respect of the Misuse of Drugs (Classification of BZP) Amendment Bill, which I wholeheartedly support, I will highlight one of the things the ACT member Heather Roy said. Of course, the ACT party believes in a free market and in live and let live. If we followed the ACT party prescription for everything and its view of the world, then maybe we would legalise every drug—LSD, crack cocaine, the lot. Where would it stop if we were to follow ACT’s belief that we live and let live and have no rules?

That silly member, who scurries around the Chamber, said that benzylpiperazine (BZP) was a medication. I will read out statistics from an eminent medical practitioner in my area, Dr Paul Gee, who is an accident and emergency specialist in Christchurch Hospital. He led a charge—and I congratulate him on it—to prove to silly people like the previous speaker that this stuff should be banned and that it is bad. Why? Because it is harmful. It is not a medication. I take it that the previous member has no medical qualifications.

Paul Gee’s research shows that between 1 April 2005 and 1 September 2005—a 5-month period—61 patients presented on 80 occasions at the accident and emergency department of Christchurch Hospital. Those patients were experiencing a number of symptoms. I do not know whether the member alluded to any of them. Interestingly, 15 toxic seizures were recorded, and two patients suffered life-threatening toxicity. The findings of the study state: “The results of this study indicate that BZP can cause unpredictable and serious toxicity in some individuals.”

I do not know what planet the previous speaker is on, or what stratosphere she orbits in her spare time, but I say that I would trust the evidence of a medical practitioner in an accident and emergency department before I would listen to the claptrap we just heard when a member of Parliament stood up and said that BZP is medication. I support Jim Anderton’s view of the world on this issue. We have to remember that BZP was developed by one Matt Bowden—the sort of godfather of party pills—who, interestingly, I am told, is, or was, represented at an exorbitant cost by the same ethical lawyers and expensive lobbyists whom the Real Estate Institute is now being represented by. Members should work that one out.

Let us be clear about BZP. It is a very sophisticated device. It is a pill for kids. That is whom it targets. That is whom it targets in my electorate.

Hone Harawira: Same with cigarettes.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: That member over there, Mr Harawira, made some very smart comments. I say that respectfully. He made some good points. He said that alcohol and tobacco are legal drugs that do a lot of harm. I accept that. I accept that absolutely. But equally I say to that member that having two bad drugs in the market place does not mean we should add to the list. If we follow that thesis—as I asked that genius from the ACT party, whose leader, as we speak, may well be on BZP—then where do we stop? The ACT party may say “Legalise everything. Who cares? Live and let live.” We cannot get a handle on people using LSD, so the ACT party may say we should legalise it.

I do not subscribe to that point of view; I subscribe to the point of view of the constituent in my electorate who started a petition the day after the Herbal Heaven shop opened in Kaiapoi, which was about a week before the last election. That person does not want to be named, because of some of the disreputable folk who are involved in that industry. I take advice from the police, the acting principal at Kaiapoi High School at that time, drug rehab folk from the Salvation Army, and others, who convene meetings at Kaiapoi High School to reassure parents and educate parents to educate their kids.

There are members who say we cannot legislate for everything and that it is not Parliament’s place to do so. I say this: there are those who look at this place and say that what we do counts. There are those who look at this place and say that if the intent of Parliament is such and the lawmakers say it is OK, then it must be OK. What we do in this place does count. People look and ask what the intent of Parliament was.

I say to the ACT member that she is right on one count: the industry is developing the next generation of party pills. We had a public admission from the godfather of the industry, who has made millions off the back of young people, that the industry is trialling the next generation of party pills, which mimic Ecstasy. What a genius that person is. Would we want a party pill that mimics an illicit drug? What a disreputable thing that is.

Mr Anderton has proposed that we change the onus so that, instead of the Crown and the taxpayer having to prove that some substance on the market brought in by those who want to make millions off the back of our kids, is safe, the manufacturer must prove that it is safe and pay for that proof. It is the reverse onus of proof. I believe that is a very logical position to be in.

I thank the communities in my patch and around the country that stood up and said they were not having a bar of this. I am one politician who says that we should draw some lines in the sand and we should say when things are bad, otherwise the ACT party member’s thesis of life is the law of the jungle. I think it was the ACT member who said that we have not had any deaths yet. I would have thought the smart thing to do is to try to provide prevention, not to have a reaction that says: “Hey, suddenly we have had a death. We should do something about it.”

Hone Harawira: 4,500 every year from cigarettes.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: As I said to Mr Harawira, just because we already have two bad drugs on the market, it does not mean we should add more. We have had those two drugs for centuries—namely, alcohol and tobacco—and maybe if we knew then what we know now about the physical and mental effects of those drugs over generations, we may not have embarked on the legal reforms we have in place now. But that is no excuse to add to the list. I thank people like Dr Paul Gee and people in the various communities around the country, because, on evidence, they have proved that this substance will have, and does have, harmful effects, especially on our young people.

I think it was Jacqui Dean who had a crack at Mr Anderton, and continues to do so, by saying that he took 2 years to do this, but, on the other hand, Opposition members say that we should not have knee-jerk reactions—and I agree with that. So what is the process for one who was a member of the ministerial drug council committee? Mr Anderton, quite logically, went and got medical practitioners and scientists. Those people are not the sort of bush doctor or witch doctor we had talking from the ACT party, but medical practitioners and scientists. He instructed them to go away and examine the level of danger this substance may or may not cause. I would have thought that was a logical thing to do. Then the scientists and the practising medical folk came back to advise Mr Anderton on an appropriate course of action.

I would have thought that was a logical thing to do. That takes time, because one should exhaustively test. It is true that we should not ban everything that is different; we should get rid of only those things that are harmful and we should manage around that situation. I say to Jacqui Dean that it was a nice cheap shot on the waka, a nice little political statement, but it does not hold water in logic.

In Papanui a shop called Jordy’s opened with a wonderful combination special, where for cheap rates people could buy party pills, samurai swords, and BB guns, if they bought them all at once. What a cracker that was. It was right next door to my electorate office in Papanui. I am pleased to say that whoever owned Jordy’s saw the writing on the wall, packed up, and left.

I hope that Mr Terry Brown, that bastion of moral fortitude who lives in Kaiapoi and has some association with the Herbal Heaven shop there, will go and sell shoes, tennis racquets, or some legal thing to make his money. I hope that he will shut his shop or change his product. For him, the writing is on the wall; it is game over.

I think today that we have listened as a Parliament to our communities, both as local members and as a collective Parliament. We have listened and we have responded logically. We have the scientific evidence, we have done the testing, and we have a plan in place not only to have this substance removed from the market but also, quite logically, to take off the market other similar substances that are there purely to make money. Let us be clear about it. Making money is the only reason for doing it. It is not to prevent harm or to stop people going on to harder drugs—how silly is that? The science has disproved it; those substances are there to make money. Future-proofing is also proposed, so that the manufacturers will have to prove that their products are safe before they are legalised.

For once, I think that the people who gathered in the Kaiapoi High School hall and in people’s homes, and the mothers and fathers who were very concerned about this, have finally had a bit of a victory today. Maybe those with the live and let live attitude where anything goes—those who wave the white flag of surrender and say: “Because we cannot get a handle on it, let us forget about it and have the law of the jungle.”—have had a loss today. I am gratified by that. I support this legislation. It is a great day for the battlers in our community.

Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) : The National Party is supporting the Misuse of Drugs (Classification of BZP) Amendment Bill. The bill seeks to change the classification of benzylpiperazine (BZP) from a class D to a class C1 drug, and also seeks to provide a 6-month amnesty for the drug.

The bill has been a long time coming, and I congratulate my colleague Jacqui Dean on keeping the pressure on. It is great that this bill will finally be passed today. BZP has already been banned in the United States, Japan, Australia, Denmark, and Sweden. In March 2007 the UK regulator warned that selling pills that contain BZP was illegal and that people should not take these pills as there were considerable health risks. The World Anti-Doping Agency has banned BZP in competitive sport. With the passage of this bill today we are simply getting into step with the rest of the world.

I was part of the Health Committee that heard the various submissions from the public. There were 52 submissions, 16 of which were oral submissions. They came from a whole variety of groups, ranging from party pill manufacturers and the party pill industry to researchers, community groups, individuals, and our own National MP Jacqui Dean. Fourteen submissions supported the bill and 38 were opposed.

The Health Committee placed a lot of weight on the evidence of the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs, which assessed BZP in 2004 and 2006. In 2004 it recommended that BZP should be regulated, but in 2006 the committee reviewed further information and felt that the new studies confirmed that, in fact, BZP had caused potentially fatal seizures. The committee classed it as causing moderate harm and recommended the change of classification to C1. The Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs again reassessed BZP in May last year and reaffirmed its position that it should be a class C1 drug.

The Health Committee heard three petitions in conjunction with the bill: two were in support of the bill—one from my own colleague Jacqui Dean—and the third one was against it. The committee heard many, many arguments that the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs had not assessed BZP thoroughly or that it had not defined what constitutes a moderate risk, and so forth. But we were reassured that this was not the case; in fact, the deliberations of the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs were very thorough. There were concerns regarding the robustness of the research that was presented to the Health Committee, but we were reassured again that the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs had looked at this extensively and the assessment was thorough and not biased at all.

There was a lot of concern over public implications of BZP. Opponents took the opportunity to cite alcohol and cigarettes as a comparison, and they have been used as examples today. A number cited concerns that prohibition would drive the industry underground and gangs would flourish, and argued that the use of BZP reduced the demand for dangerous drugs like P and the use of alcohol. In the first reading of the bill my colleague Jacqui Dean elaborated on the social consequences of BZP continuing to be sold legally in New Zealand. She quite rightly pointed out that the regulation of BZP has not decreased the use of drugs like P, as evidenced by the increase in the number of P laboratory busts that have occurred recently.

There is clear evidence that BZP is a gateway drug. BZP pills are very colourful-looking pills designed to attract youth and, indeed, they have a certain appeal to younger children. At the end of the day we do not know what the downstream effects of these party pills are; they are very new, and I say to members that we should be taking a responsible stance in the face of uncertainty in order to protect our youth and our children in the future. The argument was used in the Health Committee that alcohol and tobacco are far more dangerous and should be illegal. But the fact is that both those products have been around for hundreds and hundreds of years, and both are controlled by their own legislative frameworks. I cannot help but go back to my earlier comments that the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs assessed BZP, not once, not twice, but three times, very thoroughly and very carefully, and it has reaffirmed its position, not once but twice, that BZP should be a class C1 drug and that it causes moderate harm. Members of the advisory committee are experts and it would be a very silly Ministry of Health or Minister who ignored their advice.

I would like to acknowledge Paul Hutchison, who attempted to introduce a Supplementary Order Paper that proposed that the legislation should be reviewed in 2 years and 6 months’ time. That seemed a very sensible Supplementary Order Paper and it is regrettable that it was not accepted at the time. The National Party listened to all the arguments and we listened to my colleague Jacqui Dean, who has been passionate about this issue since she became an MP. We support the arguments and we support the passage of this bill. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.