Parliament’s Last Chance to Stop Animal Testing of Legal Highs

Parliament is about to vote on an amendment to the Psychoactive Substances Bill that would stop animal testing of legal highs. Put forward by Green Party MP Mojo Mathers in Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 248 it would prevent the data from animal testing being used when considering applications for approval of party pills for legal sale.

The New Zealand Anti-Vivisection Society (NZAVS) hopes that SOP 248 will pass and is calling on all political parties to support it. “Any vote against the SOP is a vote in favour of animal testing of legal highs and that is something the majority of voters don’t want” says NZAVS spokesperson Stephen Manson, “when the separate vote on the SOP happens the NZ public will see which political parties want animal testing of party pills to be allowed.

“The Bill as reported back by the health select committee allows animal testing with conditions that aren’t clear or defined. At its best the current version is in line with what a recent Horizon poll found only 14.8% of voters wanted the government to do.

“The clause addressing animal testing added at the last minute by the select committee is impractical and difficult to enforce as it uses vague undefined terms. It also tries to impose the Animal Welfare Act ethics committee restrictions on overseas testing without saying how this could be done. Mojo’s SOP is clear and easily enforced as it introduces one simple restriction on the type of data that can be considered – that it can’t come from animals.

“The only reason to oppose the SOP is to make the testing stage as cheap and easy as possible for the drug manufacturers” Mr Manson went on to say. “Animal tests can be about a third of the cost of non-animal tests and the data is notoriously unreliable. We have seen evidence from inside animal testing labs that show they provide the results the companies paying them want and have no faith in their own data.

“All political parties that don’t think it is acceptable to kill animals in order to allow the sale of legal highs need to support the amendment. It will not compromise human safety in any way whatsoever; in fact it will do the opposite. We are asking New Zealand voters to let their MPs know they need to support SOP 248 for the sake of human safety, the animals and common decency.”

ENDS

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