Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Sally King: NZ Medical Cannabis Council Director on the changes to the export rules

Transcript

Sally King: NZ Medical Cannabis Council Director on the changes to the export rules · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ranges to New Zealand's medicinal cannabis export rules have been
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: approved by Cabinet to help growers, manufacturers and exporters. Exports
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: will now only have to meet the standards of the
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: importing jurisdiction rather than New Zealand's standards. It will also
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: streamline the licensing process for growers and update testing and
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: laboratory requirements. Sally King is the executive director of the
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: New Zealand Medical Cannabis Council. Who's with me this morning, Sally,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: good morning, Sorry I did that thing again, Sally, good morning.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Hello Marianna Ryan, how are you very well?
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Thank you? Tell me why have we been requiring companies
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: thus far to meet New Zealand standards rather than just
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: the country that we're exporting to.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, it's one of those examples of over regulation
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: that is being untangled. It's a very good thing. I
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: think it was an unintended consequence of the speed at
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: which the regulations were back in twenty eighteen twenty nineteen, right,
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: And the effect of that was that, you know, a
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: whole new industry and sector with regulations written within one year.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: There were always going to be a few snaffoos.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Right, Okay, so it was a snaffoo, we've fixed it.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: That's great. How much we do we actually export and
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: where do we export it to?
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  Speaker 2: Mainly maybe to Australia and we don't We don't export
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: much medicinal cannabis at all at the moment. It's been
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: far too difficult. There's probably been less than ten consignments
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: since so far. But with the change, it's rarely going
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: to open up the opportunity for New Zealand cultivators and manufacturers.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Where do you think we will target? And are we
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: going to target whoever has the loosest standards?
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: No? No, not necessarily. New Zealand has a reputation because
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: of it's really rigid or restrictive regulation for having really
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: good quality product here. So we're on the right, we're
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: on the right standard already. Where we will be first
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: targeting is probably Australia, but equally Europe. We have had
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: some confinements CENTERP into Germany and into Europe as things
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: shift there and we'll see a lot more of that.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Just finally, can you paint us a picture, Sally, of
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: what we're actually exporting? Is it a cannabis leaf?
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: You know?
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  Speaker 1: Put in a box that someone can get high from.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: What exactly is it?
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  Speaker 2: Well, up until up until last week, the only thing
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  Speaker 2: you could export in this system was cannabis leaf, dried leaf,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: and that was for further processing elsewhere. These regulations are
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: real game changes because they allow for some extracts, some
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: initial extracts, to also be exported. In all cases, therefore,
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: what we call cannabis ingredients, they're going to be further
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: processed or manufactured, or alternatively, we can manufacture it complete
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: propriate you know, GMP reading material. So the biggest opportunity
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  Speaker 2: will be though with the ingredients.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Sally, thank you very much for your time. Best of
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: luck with that. It sounds like snapoo, and I'm glad
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: it's being fixed. That's Sally King. With us for more
• 3:19
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• 3:22
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• 3:25
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