Headline: Bill a win for communities and animals
We have not seen any evidence that we need to allow animal testing of recreational drugs.
The Green Party welcomes the Psychoactive Substances Bill as it is reported back to the House today, and is delighted that an amendment limiting animal testing has finally been included, despite the submissions on animal testing being rejected by the chair of the Select Committee.
“This Bill is a necessary and practical step to end the harm caused by allowing untested drugs to be the market,” said Green Party health spokesperson Kevin Hague.
“We support strong regulation for party pills and legal highs; we can’t continue to put our communities at risk.
“The Select Committee has worked hard to get this bill ready quickly because people are being harmed right now due to the lack of regulation of these substances,” said Mr Hague.
The Green Party also welcomed the amendment restricting the use of animal testing in the bill.
“We welcome the new Minister’s acknowledgement of animal testing of recreational drugs as an issue and we recognise that he has attempted to remedy the animal welfare concerns associated with this bill by limiting its use,” said Green Party animal welfare spokesperson Mojo Mathers.
“Todd McClay’s amendment is a meaningful improvement over the previous Minister’s failure to ensure that the bill addressed issues around animal testing.
“However, we will still be putting forward our amendment to rule out the use of data from animal testing being used as proof of safety.
“Our amendment is much simpler and more practical to enforce than the Minister’s amendment and doesn’t allow any animal testing.
“We have not seen any evidence that we need to allow animal testing of recreational drugs. In fact, the evidence we have seen is that all the proposed animal tests can be replaced with modern and effective non-animal tests,” said Ms Mathers.
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