Thursday, 26 August 2010, 3:17 pm
Speech: The Maori Party
MISUSE OF DRUGS AMENDMENT BILL
First Reading
Wednesday 25 August 2010; 7.45pm
Hon Dr Pita Sharples, Co-leader Maori Party
This is an amendment that the government is making to the misuse of drugs act, which will make the supplying, importing or possessing a pipe, or any identifiable component, illegal. This will only cause more harm to the community, as we all end up with aluminium poisoning from our homemade cone pieces. Help us fight this bill by adding a submission here.
Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I will take a short call on this bill.
The bill amends the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 and the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Act 2005 by inserting a complex drug vocabulary into the statute.
The basic incentive of the bill is to reclassify ephedrine and pseudoephedrine as class B controlled drugs, remove thalidomide as a class A controlled drug, allow hazardous substances to be scheduled as restricted substances, extend the definition of amphetamine analogues, and extend the controls over drug paraphernalia.
The bill prohibits the supply, import, possession for the purpose of sale and supply, a pipe, other utensil, or identifiable component of a pipe. That is the paraphernalia part.
The bill also amends the Land Transport Act 1998 to reflect that thalidomide is no longer a controlled drug. Previously it was an exception to the offence of driving while under the influence of schedule 1 controlled drugs.
But let us be clear. The real purpose and value of the bill is to add to the campaign against P.
Technically speaking, this legislation will define ephedrine and pseudoephedrine as class B2 controlled drugs, whether or not it is contained in the substance, preparation, or a mixture.
The key point is that there has been too high a risk that pseudoephedrine is being diverted into the manufacture of methamphetamine. This risk is such that the ongoing availability of pseudoephedrine over the counter is not sufficiently significant enough to outweigh the cost in adding to the manufacture of P.
Anyone who has experienced the havoc that P has wreaked on families and communities will tell us of the devastating impact this drug has on health and the well-being of a community.
We have, though, done some amazing things in our communities in fighting the scourge of P in our midst. For years, besieged communities have had programmes responding to the effects of P and trying to help keep people away from it. The Patua Te Ngāngara programme at Hoani Waititi Marae is one programme. I am proud to say that I initiated that programme and ran it for four years, and it is still going now.
But when taking that programme around New Zealand, from Kaitāia to Invercargill, and stopping at various towns, to educate about P we heard anecdotes and situations from police and people attending those hui that are devastating. We heard of mothers sending their children out to prostitute for them, so that they could get money for their P habit. A little girl tried to hang herself at school, and was cut down. She said she was on P, but she was not. She was prostituting for her mother who was on P. We heard of a man coming home from work, to find a gang in his house with his wife. She owes $10,000. We heard story after story. A man wanted to shoot his son because he has caused such havoc within his family, because of his P habit, and so on. It is really horrific.
P is the most antisocial of all drugs, and it attacks society. However, around the country, towns and communities have declared themselves to be P free. There are rāhui set up in certain places against P, and generally there is a spirit in the community that it is not good to use P. Even amongst gangs, there is some work being done on getting rid of P. Denis O’Reilly is leading a lot of that work amongst the community. We know that children as young as 9 years old have been sold P in fruit-flavoured tablets.
There are all sorts of different things going on. It is all scary stuff, and anything at all that stops the assault of P on our young lives has to be considered.
The Māori Party will support any initiative to curb the underbelly of the P industry. If this reclassification will help towards that end, then that will be our stance.
I commend the local councils that are working together with iwi, the police, and Government agencies to remove the pushers, the cooks, and the suppliers of this drug. I hope, though, that doctors’ prescriptions for cold medicines that contain pseudoephedrine will not incur additional costs on low-income families, if they are merely visiting the doctor to get that prescription only. The Māori Party will support this bill, and let the kōrero be had at the select committee. Thank you.
“We know that children as young as 9 years old have been sold P in fruit-flavoured tablets.”
Come on, I don’t like. or use P, and think the world would be a better place if the stuff would disappear, but honestly this sort of obvious fearmongering bullshit doesn’t do anyone any good. It sounds like the clumsy anti-drug propaganda of the US government in the 1930s.
P really does have some bad effects, and possibly is the worst drug so far for those indirectly affected by it, but I think we would have heard and seen a little bit more than anecdotes if people really were pushing fruity-flavoured P pills on the school playground, like maybe some P addicted 9 year olds, or an example of these supposed pills.
Similar nonsensical claims about “strawberry-flavoured” pink meth were going around in the states a few years ago if I recall correctly… More like the red coating from their pseudoephedrine source wasn’t washed out properly and stained the end product.
The dark spectre that lurks behind synthesized drugs is that illicit maniufacturers are typically not trained, not using clean equipment and not using good source chemicals meaning that there’s a lot of scope for inconsistency and impurities between batches.
Typically P cooks are generating a spectrum of uninteresting byproducts besides amphetamine, including microscopic amounts of a substance called MPTP which can induce Parkinsonism in healthy people. As the manufacturers are pushed to constantly change their formula and ingredients by authorities, it’s only a matter of time until a batch of “bad P” comes along that permanently hospitalizes or kills some users.
Well said Steviant.. these are all the issues of an unrestricted, BLACK-MARKET that is the result of this failed prohibitionist policy. Unfortunatley most of the information put out there, is actually ‘misinformation’ & ‘fear-mongering’ by those who prefer to maintain the status quo, regardless of the out-comes.
One has to wonder why a prohibition policy that was a definate failure with Alcohol in 1920-30s USA is still being seen as a solution with every other drug besides Alcohol & Tobacco. Obviously the blinkers haven’t come off with a large section of society who support it. Then there are those who support law-reform, but they fear the consequences of speaking out & maybe being labelled as ‘druggie’ or worse, being targetted by the ‘blue-line’ ?
All drugs should be dealt with on a level playing field, not a prejudical & over-emotive one !! Kia-ora Koutou
I wrote a page about this subject bad sounding law:
http://www.legalise.org.nz/misuse-of-drugs-amendment-bill-2010/