Misuse of Drugs (Industrial Hemp) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Misuse of Drugs (Industrial Hemp) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

This bill has been before this Parliament for some time.

It was introduced in early 2001 at a time when I think it is fair to say that the Government was dithering on the issue. There was growing public concern for a law that did not allow the growing of industrial hemp. The arable division of Federated Farmers had expressed support for the idea and Government was considering what to do about that growing pressure. The bill was introduced in early 2001, and between the introduction and the first reading the Government announced that it would proceed with 2 years of trials of industrial hemp. That was a very positive thing, and similarly to my Clean Slate Bill it basically forced the Government's hand and required it to make up its mind one way or the other about where it would go on the issue, and to the Government's credit it took it as a positive move and got behind industrial hemp in so far as allowing trials to proceed. I have to take at least some credit for that along with Rod Donald, co-leader of the Greens, who has also been agitating on this issue for some time.

The bill was referred to the Primary Production Committee. I said at the time that I expected it to be amended in particular to allow the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to create regulations by Order in Council. I had 2 weeks to prepare the bill between the selection of my Clean Slate Bill and the next ballot, so the drafting of it was fairly rushed, but it is a simple bill. The bill went to the Primary Production Committee and I fully expected that, in spite of fact that we had trials going ahead, the select committee would hear submissions and perhaps use those submissions from the industry as a way of helping to develop the regulations of those trials. Unfortunately, the select committee took the view that we would allow the trials to go ahead before hearing submissions and I went along with that. We had the first year of trials and the evaluations were extremely successful. No security issues were identified by the working-party.

There was a small problem with bird strike, because birds love hemp seeds, and for many years that was the main object of growing hemp seeds-for bird food. The Primary Production Committee asked for an environmental evaluation in light of that, and it was quite proper for it to do so. At the end of the next year there was also an extremely good evaluation. There was no problem with bird strike in the second year that I am aware of, although it may have been the case, and the environmental evaluation by the working-party showed that there were no significant issues to be addressed in terms of environmental risk posed by the growing of industrial hemp. Of course that takes a lot of sense-it is a light-loving plant, it is highly palatable to pretty much any animal that comes across it, and the seed is destroyed in the digestive tract. So it is not likely that it would pose a great risk.

Nevertheless, that did not stop some members of the committee from making much ado about nothing and basically not letting the facts get in the way of a good story, as they say. I think it was an abusive process because at the end of the 2 years of trials the select committee announced that even though it had said it would hear submissions at the end of the trials rather than at the beginning, it then made the decision to not hear any submissions at all because we had just had 2 years of trials. That is very, very unusual. In fact, possibly an unprecedented thing that a select committee would have a bill before it and not even call for submissions on it. It is quite extraordinary, and I think it is also quite abusive.

I have to highlight in particular the contributions made by some Government members - Dover Samuels, Janet Mackey, and Damien O'Connor, Gerrard Eckhoff from ACT, and Phil Heatley from the National Party. They went out of their way to be as obstructive as possible on this issue. To be fair, the Chair, David Carter, behaved very reasonably and addressed the issues. Doug Woolerton of New Zealand First behaved very reasonably. Both those members actually wanted to look at the evidence. However, it is fair to say that some of those members, to their shame, saw more political mileage in providing an obstacle to the development of a viable hemp industry and the political capital they could gain from having a bit of a kick around on the issue, rather than actually standing up for farming people.

Gerrard Eckhoff is often proud of what a farmer he is. Standing in the way of farmers having the opportunity to do what they ask this Parliament to allow them to do, which is to grow industrial hemp, is to the shame of those members. As a result of the Primary Production Committee's unwillingness to do a little bit of work and hear some submissions, we now have the ridiculous situation that hemp is being regulated by Medsafe. I think if members of the Primary Production Committee had heard submissions they would have heard a pretty much unanimous view from the hemp industry that Medsafe is entirely the wrong body to do these regulations and that it should be done by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

To be fair to Medsafe, I do not think that Medsafe does not particularly want it either; it has just ended up in its lap. When we go to the web site of Medsafe and look at what its mission is-this is the body that is to regulate industrial hemp; an industrial crop for building products and for cloth such as this and other products-we see that it is to enhance the health of New Zealanders by regulating medicines and medical devices to maximize safety and benefit.

It is absolutely bizarre that that is the body that has been put in charge of regulating the hemp industry. I was scratching my head about this issue and asked some of my friends: "Why do you think this would be?". The obvious answer came back that when it comes to evaluating the use of cannabis for medicine and we need medical advice on that we go to the police and judges, so it stands to reason that if we want agricultural advice we should ask a doctor. There is a great logic in that. It is a slightly Orwellian logic, but I can see that there is logic. There was a lot of concern about the draft regulations put out by Medsafe, and it is not Medsafe's fault. It is just not its area of expertise and we would not expect it to get it particularly right.

It was a concern that when Rod Donald and myself met with some of the Medsafe people it became clear that they simply were not aware of many of the uses of industrial hemp. Food products, in particular, were the things they were unaware of; food products produced overseas quite happily and legally for the health benefits of people in Canada and all over Europe and places such as that-products that we cannot have in this country. But I am pleased to see that the Government and the regulatory body have responded to the comments on the draft regulations, and I am pleased to say that there is an attempt to address, at least some of concerns, and I commend the Minister and Medsafe on that. I understand those new regulations are due in January.

I have a question around the people who want to plant this year. Where will they be left with regard to regulations? There is a big issue outstanding, which is the hemp seed issue. What was then the Australia New Zealand Food Authority, rejected hemp as a food, despite the overwhelming international evidence of its nutritional value due to its profile of amino acids and essential fatty acids, GLA (Gamma Lineolic Acid) and the like. The Minister, to her credit, got an exemption for New Zealand to allow us to produce hemp seed oil, and so now we have New Zealand - made hemp seed oil--cold pressed hemp seed oil pressed by a company in Ashburton, which is very good to see. But one of the problems is that New Zealand is not able to be competitive because it cannot use the other by products. We can produce the oil, but we cannot use the seed cake as a by-product. So farmers in Canada can grow hemp for food. They can make pastas out of the seed cake. We cannot do that. That is illegal in this country. I think that the Government should be looking at addressing that issue with some urgency, and I hope to see the Minister of Health doing that.

So the Greens are unhappy, and I am unhappy that this bill is not going to proceed, because clearly it will be voted down by this House. We think that that is a shame. It is still the most sensible way to deal with hemp-to allow it to be regulated by the Ministry of Agriculture rather than by the Ministry of Health; it does not belong in there. But I have to say that hemp is in production in this country, and it is being grown. We have products available as a result-food products, insulation, and various other things. There is a great future for papers and building products as well. So the long-term future is looking particularly good.

I have to pay tribute to people who drew the attention of this country to hemp in the early 1990s for the first time. People like Mike Finlayson, Chris Fowlie, Rob Uberfeldt, Gina Thompson, Marion Barnes, Gary Clarkson and myself, and later people like Brian Slight, Mac McIntosh, and the others. Good on them for their work. This country is the better for it despite the complacency of this Parliament.