MPS VOTE TO RECLASSIFY SPEED

Wellington: MPs moved yesterday to reclassify methamphetamine, or speed, as
a class A drug that will see increased penalties for those caught making
the drug.

Importing or manufacturing the drug for supply now brings a penalty of life
imprisonment - up from the current 14-year maximum sentence.

Associate Health Minister Damien O'Connor told Parliament last night the
reclassification of methamphetamine would give the substance "a higher
priority for enforcement agencies and will send the message . . . to New
Zealanders that this is a dangerous and undesirable substance".

Senior cabinet minister Jim Anderton, who chairs the ministerial action
group on alcohol and drugs, said once the order was approved it might take
as little as two weeks to come into force.

National health spokeswoman Lynda Scott backed the move, saying
methamphetamine was a "highly, highly dangerous drug".

"People think it's just a party drug but I tell you when they wake up in
the police cells finding they have committed horrendous, violent crimes
then they have to think about what they have done with their lives."

Four methamphetamine "look alike" drugs were also reclassified last night,
which Dr Scott said would catch the "scumbags" who produced similar drugs
to methamphetamine which often had similar chemical compounds but were just
slightly different so they did not get caught.

The methamphetamine risk was not as well recognised as that associated with
LSD, Dr Scott said. "When LSD was around in the 60s and 70s people came to
know that people could have bad trips on it, end up in psychiatric
hospitals with permanent psychotic episodes and flashbacks that put them
into psychosis. Act New Zealand MP Heather Roy said the drug should have
been reclassified much earlier.

"In the last 12 months there has been a 300% increase in the number of meth
labs found by the police and it is thought that this is just the tip of the
iceberg."

Methamphetamine was a synthetic substance often manufactured from
over-the-counter cough and cold remedies containing ephedrine or
pseudoephedrine. Only the Greens voted against the Misuse of Drugs (Changes
to Controlled Substances) Order which contained the reclassification of
methamphetamine. - NZPA