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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-09-11 Daily Xml
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SYNTHETIC DRUGS

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (15:16): Thank you, Mr Acting Speaker. My contribution today is about an issue that has been raised with me recently, certainly on the campaign trail, but constituents have not wanted to come to my office to raise this issue with me in an office. Both of these constituents—one was a young woman in her early 20s and the other was a parent with children ranging from toddlers right through to 14 years old—wanted to raise with me the issue of what the government was going to do about synthetic drugs.

The concerns they raised—the 23 year old told me about a number of drugs that I had never heard of before—were particularly concerned with something called 'Spice' and also something called 'K-2' which, as I understand it, along with the term 'Chronic', is a synthetic marijuana/cannabis-type product. I understand that these products do not have THC or Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol in them but they certainly, I am told, have the same effect as what we would have understood marijuana to do.

They also drew my attention to the fact that in New Zealand there has recently been legislation that has been passed looking at psychoactive substances and this legislation was introduced with the view that if a provider of a recreational drug can prove that it was safe, then they would be regulated to sell this drug. I guess this was a variation on the theme of prohibition versus regulation but I was quite surprised at the research that both of these constituents, separately, had done in this area.

The parent of the 14 year old was particularly concerned because her son had been offered 'Chronic' and he and his friends had purchased some from another friend—an older sibling in their circle of friends—and they were about to have a party to try this 'Chronic' which they were going to smoke. Fortunately, the parent, being very responsible, wanted to know the details of the party that they were organising and found that they had this supply of 'Chronic'.

I was very interested to then follow up on what was happening in New Zealand. I am not sure that it is an approach that I would necessarily support but it does raise the issues that we have heard before in our community about whether we need to be more open about the fact that people do take drugs, and that with a lot of these drugs people do not know what they are taking. They are taking advice from their friends, who probably have about as much information as they do. Because it seems to be a 'hip' thing and it is easy to take, either in a pill or some sort of capsule, they just go ahead and do it.

I guess that what I am really doing is saying that I think this issue needs to be put back on the table for discussion. I can understand why many people in this place would have concerns about legalising drugs or going down the road of the New Zealand parliament, but I think that we need to put it back on the agenda and be aware of the fact that even the United Nations is telling us that, over the last 3½ years, the number of new drugs that have come onto the market that they know of has gone up by 30 per cent. We are talking about 300-odd drugs which are now in the market which we have no idea about whether they are safe or what they do. But when someone has taken them, seeing the results is not very pretty, from what I can make out.

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