(New Zealand Health Minister Tony Ryall has welcomed Parliament\u2019s support for the Psychoactive Substances Amendment Act, passed today under urgency by New Zealand parliament. The Act, expected to receive Royal assent on Wednesday and become law on Thursday 8 May 2014, removes all remaining psychoactive products on the New Zealand market. It also bans the use of animal testing data in support of product approvals. \u201cWhen the Psychoactive Substances Act was passed last year, some products were allowed to stay on the market,\u201d says Ryall. \u201cThe amendment means all interim retail and wholesale licences will be cancelled and all psychoactive products given interim approval will be removed from sale. It will also become illegal to possess and supply the products. \u201cWhile animal testing remains a necessary and important component of the process for developing a number of important products, such as medicines, the government does not believe that such testing was justifiable for the recreational drug market. \u201cThe intent of the original Psychoactive Substances Act remains with approved low risk products able to come to market in the future when regulations are made,\u201d Ryall said. All psychoactive products will become unapproved from Thursday and it will be an offence to possess, supply or sell them. Those in possession of products are advised to return them to the retailer they purchased them from. (national.org.nz) *A psychoactive drug is a chemical substance that crosses the blood\u2013brain barrier and acts primarily upon the central nervous system where it affects brain function, resulting in alterations in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition, and behavior.<\/p>\n
Source:\u00a0 www.nation.lk\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 www.national.org.nz\u00a0\u00a0 6th May\u00a0 2014<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (New Zealand Health Minister Tony Ryall has welcomed Parliament\u2019s support for the Psychoactive Substances Amendment Act, passed today under urgency by New Zealand parliament. The Act, expected to receive Royal assent on Wednesday and become law on Thursday 8 May 2014, removes all remaining psychoactive products on the New Zealand market. It also bans the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-sector","category-new-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9491\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}