Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In concluding this debate with near unanimous support for the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Psychoactive Substances and Other Measures) Bill 2014, I want to observe that we are in a global battle against psychoactive substances, not just a national one or even a state one. Synthetic drugs are taking an ever-increasing share of the drug problem. We saw heroin and cocaine were popular in the 70s and 80s. They were replaced in the 90s where there could not be a party without there being a pill. Methamphetamines replaced amphetamines and now, ultimately, they have been replaced by what we refer to as designers drugs. It is important that the government can respond to the ever-increasing threat. It is a complex and fast-changing threat.

We have been waiting a very long time for legislation that takes a standards based approach to these substances and that identifies not just individual molecular threats to the health of young people and people who ingest them but identifies that any substance that is not legitimately a pharmaceutical or a food that attempts in some way to create a similar effect to an illegal drug is just as illegal as the illegal drug itself. We are tired of our law enforcement officers having to consume taxpayer funded resources to chase people who abuse these substances at enormous cost to the public only to have the recipe slightly changed by the drug cook and then those supplying the substances can walk scot-free. We have an enormous scope and variety in these NPSs, new psychoactive substances. They appear to be originating predominantly from parts of Asia and West Africa. These networks are only just being understood now by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Increasingly, a large amount of product destined for Europe is going through Turkey. West Africa is increasingly providing to the dominant global market of South-East Asia and South Asia. Still the markets in Hong Kong, Japan and China are increasingly seeing the bulk of the trade. Around 36 tonnes of this material was intercepted by global authorities but that is really only the tip of the iceberg. What we know is that increasingly Japan and Malaysia are the targets. Wherever South-East Asia establishes a supply, sure as you can be certain, Australia will be a target market as well. Ketamine is another popular drug traditionally well known to us in Australia as a veterinary anaesthetic but still abused, particularly by our near northern neighbours.

Precisely what did Queensland—the state that, under Campbell Newman, led the way as part of the safer night out strategy—do to come up with a legislative solution that other states have started to follow? It was the important addition of a clause that any dangerous drug that intends to have a substantially similar pharmacological effect to a scheduled drug should be identified as dangerous and is illegal under section 4C of the Drugs Misuse Act 1986. This was a very important change. No longer did we have this invidious delay between the drug being cooked up and hitting the market and the authorities needing to respond legislatively. That delay no longer exists.

We have also seen in Queensland some substantial seizures in both Townsville last year and in Mount Isa under operation Lima Evergreen and Lima Steward. We need to be able to ban these products immediately, as soon as they hit the market. As we said: when you see hoof prints, you do not think of zebras. They are clearly drugs that are being abused and used by the same target market. People are taking an extraordinary risk when they consume them.

This surge has just led to literally hundreds of these products. As I said, a simple molecular manipulation is enough to create a new product, but, of course, then it is mixed up in varying compositions. So we have the ridiculous situation where someone can take a simple leaf or a herb, take hand sprayer, spray the psychoactive ingredient over it, chop it up and press it into a pill. It is that simple but it is also unpredictable. The product that you might have had safely yesterday with the same name is no longer necessarily safe tomorrow.

What we have is an inability to identify a life-threatening substance that has been consumed and we are powerless to administer any sort of ban to prevent it from continually being supplied. So we need to be able to act quickly, particularly with drugs like with mephedrone where there is now an international agreement thanks to the UK approaching the United Nations. There are now 348 of these products reported globally, and I am sure even that number is old. We saw the total number of substances mimicking cannabis alone double from 60 to 110 in just one year between 2012 and 2013. So it is important that we are standing here to stop the tragic deaths.

We are not going to stop people experimenting. Every behavioural psychologist will tell you that between the ages of 15 and 25 as the frontal lobe develops, young people will take great risks at that time of their life. All we can do as a society is delay the point at which that experimentation occurs and to reduce the intensity of it. The common wisdom that is provided—and I know that it is schoolies week right now so the Red Frog teams around the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast will be working very hard even as we speak—is to stay in groups, stick with your friends, do not get isolated and do not do drugs. It is simply the wrong place with no supports. Do not take those risks at any time, particularly at schoolies, where you are most likely to be less risk-averse.

We need to ban the importation of these substances. That is obvious, and the bill does that. But we are a part of a global market; the demand is in Australia and so too will be the importation. The sophistication of these measures is extraordinary. Smugglers are now able to purchase two postcards; use the obverse sides of two postcards, cutting them down to be thinner; place some gladwrap in between the two postcards; iron some illegal drug in between the two sides of the postcard, melding them together; and simply post drugs, using standard delivery systems. We need to be able to stop, seize and destroy this immediately—and the federal government gives us that option with this legislation tonight, supporting the states, who have been calling for it for a very long time, asking for federal support with preventing importation.

I want to mention briefly that, regardless of the name of these products, what you bought yesterday is not necessarily what you will buy tomorrow. The most common active ingredient was initially BZP, benzylpiperazine, but also trifluoromethylphenylpiperazine, piper nigrum, phenylalanine, tryptophan and tyracine. They were the active ingredients initially; now, we have moved on to BZP-free drugs. These are also an increasing concern.

Why are these drugs so dangerous? If they are just mimicking cannabis, isn't the easy solution to simply legalise cannabis? The answer is no. For every reason that most of us understand in here, cannabis is an extraordinarily dangerous drug. There is a no safe dose of that drug. We should never be contemplating the legalisation of it, despite what some states in the United States may well be doing.

More importantly, there are unique characteristics of these synthetic cannabinoids that make them particularly dangerous. The first one is the absence of cannabidiol, which has some moderating impact on the tetrahydrocannabinol. The second one is that it is a full rather than a partial agonist, meaning that it acts on the CD receptors with a 100 per cent effect—and the CD receptors are very common through the brain, neurologists tell me. Last of all, even the metabolites of these artificial cannabis products still retain some kind of effectiveness. The great benefit of cannabis is that the active ingredient, once broken down, is no longer effective. That is not the case with these. So we take an extraordinary risk when we consume these artificial cannabinoids.

What Queensland has done with artificial drugs is a lesson to the rest of the country. What they have done with their Safe Night Out strategy is even more audacious and bold. Australians understand that it is utterly unacceptable for people of any age to be out in a drinking precinct, being a danger to themselves and then needing the health system to bail them out; or being a danger to others through alcohol-fuelled violence and hospital admissions.

It is not good enough to simply employ more police on double time, running around the streets picking these people up and trying to keep them apart; while the offenders refuse move-on orders, costing huge amounts of taxpayers' money—none of which is recouped from them. It is not good enough to simply give them a suspended sentence. It is time for some serious law reform in this area. It is utterly unacceptable that these people do not pay the costs of their behaviour. If they are a threat to the lives and the health of others, they need to be charged for it. If they are delaying, diverting or consuming police and ambulance resources through drug-affected behaviour, they need to be charged for it.

Queensland has taken the first tentative but significant steps in this area with their 'sober safe' centres. If you are deemed to be in that state of mind, you can be picked up by a police officer and not taken through that extraordinarily complex piece of paperwork that involves detaining, arresting, calling into court and running through the legal system. This is clearly something not dissimilar to a basic infringement. If you are consuming police resources, threatening the life or health of someone else and are clearly a danger to the people around you, Queensland will take you to 'sober safe' centres. Offenders will pay a proportion of the cost of being detained before they are released. It is a very important step in that direction.

Sure, these are stronger penalties, but nothing up until now has really worked very well. If I am a parent and I think my children are in safe drinking areas, I have the right to expect that they will come home the next morning alive. That is a basic expectation. It is inadequate that Australia and a handful of countries cannot manage these illegal drugs and risky alcohol-consuming behaviour.

We are working hard with government advertising, but 20 years of that has not made a jot of difference. We have had the alcohol industry onboard working hard—although obviously in a conflicted situation—and doing their best to ensure responsible drinking in venues and making sure there is not a single pill in these places. Ultimately, I think that initiatives like DrinkWise and new apps are encouraging. We need people saying hello to Sunday morning; we need people knowing that you can drink responsibly and still be cool. Ultimately, it simply is not good enough to be carried out by an ambulance or arrested by a policeman—regarding that as being some rite of passage.

We have an opportunity here as a federal government: to prevent the importation of these drugs, to ensure that we seize these products and to clearly identify that these are illicit substances even if you choose to tweak the molecule. This federal legislation does that, and I congratulate the government for its action.

See this speech in context