David Seymour: Associate Health Minister on melatonin being made available over the counter at NZ pharmacies

Changes to allow over the counter sales of sleep drug melatonin in New Zealand - alongside relaxing rules on magic mushrooms as medicine.

MedSafe's approved melatonin for sale to adults without a prescription.

Psilocybin remains unapproved, but one specifically qualified psychiatrist is now permitted to prescribe it for treatment-resistant depression.

Associate Health Minister David Seymour is standing by not revealing the doctor's name -  saying they could get harassed because of people confusing it with a recreational drug.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now I've got some great news for you. You're soon
going to be able to buy melatonin over the counter
like you're an adult living in the first world. Also,
magic mushrooms will soon be able to be prescribed for
depression treatments. David Seymour is the Associate Minister of Health
who's brought the scent or is bringing this in and
he's with us. Now, Hi, David, it's wild that we

(00:20):
weren't allowed to buy melatonin or still aren't allowed.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Why is that?

Speaker 3 (00:24):
I haven't actually been able to find out the band
was put in place in nineteen ninety six, or at
least not a band that was made prescription only, but
much like pseudo eff for Dream that we unleashed last year,
once it became prescription only, not enough people got prescription
and no one bought it into the country, and the
whole thing dried up.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
So what have across these stupid ideas?

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Well, people, people have good ideas to get rid of
stupid rules.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Enough enough, But how do you come across these stupid rules? David?

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Do people come to you and say, hey, listen, there's
this really stupid rule you should overturn it, or a
just reading through stuff and you go, why are you
doing that?

Speaker 2 (01:02):
That's stupid.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
We're getting a lot of feedback about melatonin and cybersyllain,
which we can talk about if you like magic mushrooms
as you described it. We had people right in the
Ministry for Regulations now got a red tape tip line
which is supplying a lot of these ideas, and we're
just trying to deregulate something if we can every day.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Okay, let's talk about the magic mushrooms. Now, this is
only available to people, I understand, who've already tried a
whole bunch of stuff to get rid of the depression
and it doesn't work.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Is that right?

Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah? And look it's tempting, I think for people to
get in the son of everyone having magic mushies, but
they're actually very serious. Around the world, including here, there's
people with really serious, untreatable depression, and there's a serious
scientific research effort that has found that actually psilocybin is

(02:00):
something that can treat it when nothing else can. The
Food and Drug Administration, the FDA and the US has
recently consented it, so they're taking it seriously. And psychiatrists
in New Zealand have expressed that they'd like to be
able to prescribe it. Medsaf has said that one psychiatrist
initially will be able to Other psychiatrists can now apply

(02:21):
for the ability to prescribe, and I think it can
make a big difference for people with a very very
serious mental health challenge.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Where's this one psychiatrist living.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
That is something that we are not going to disclose
because we don't want everyone in the country asking them
for psilocybin. They will be well, the simple reason that
they want to prescribe it for the patients that they have.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
That's not fair, David.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Why should it only be a lucky a total lottery
as to whether you get the right psychiatrist or not.
Surely if somebody has tried absolutely everything in their living
with depression, they should know what the who the psychiatrist is,
so you can go see them and see if this
is appropriate.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
Well, if they're in that situation, then their psychiatrists can
also apply to be able to prescribe it. So we
are going to open this up a lot more. However,
the decision was that if it was to get out
that somebody had the ability to do this, then they
might get a lot of harassment because a lot of
people confuse this for their recreational drugs, and I totally

(03:25):
understand your point, but that's why we're not giving their name.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Okay, now, can you explain to me what is going
on with this weird plan that you have to make
it easier for bosses to be able to fire workers
who are earning one hundred and eighty thousand dollars or more.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
Well, first of all, the rule that is being put
in is exactly the same as Australia. So there's a
large country to the west of here where they don't
think it's weird at all. It's just the Norman.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
It hasn't gone well for them. It's led to like
huge amounts of litigation.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
Well, I mean a lot of laws lead to litigation.
That doesn't mean that the benefits of the law are
less than the costs of that litigation. There's lots of
litigation around our current employment law that we press on
with it. I also make the point that this is
an opportunity for a lot of people to get a job,
especially younger people trying to move up, because you can

(04:18):
put as many protections as you like and make it
very very difficult to dismiss someone if it doesn't work out.
But every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In
this case, if you make it very difficult to move
someone on if it doesn't work out, a lot of
employers will compensate by being more hesitant to give someone
an opportunity in the first place. So simple question is,

(04:39):
do you want a dynamic economy with opportunities and growth
or do you want more of a Nana's economy where
you lock it down and say a few people who
are desperate to keep what's their even if they underperform,
take away opportunities.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
You know that anybody can get fired a founder perform.
This is just to make fire and quicker and easier
for the bosses. But it seems to me you're taking
a political risk here because this is exactly the kind
of person earning this kind of money, who lives in EPSOM,
who lives in your electorate, who is likely to vote
for ACTS. So aren't you running the risk of pissing
off your own voters?

Speaker 3 (05:13):
I read your column, Heather, and I think the thing
that is a bit weird it is your fixation with
the policy. And then to answer your question, first of all,
that the people that support ACTS typically are people who
are aspirational and they want an opportunity in their own future.

(05:33):
They want a dynamic economy, they want opportunities for their kids,
and putting a whole lot of red tape around employment law.
As I say, every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
But the second point that I'd make is that you know,
you said a second to go, oh, well, actually, it's
already easy to fire people, so this will make it

(05:54):
no difference. No, I didn't say that.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Don't misquote me. That's not fair.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
I didn't. I didn't.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
I said you can already fire somebody for underperformance. This
simply makes it easier and faster.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
Yeah, okay, so we basically are talking about the same thing.
Now we both agree that if someone's underperforming that they
should be able to be let go. The question is
how much red ka fe and bureaucracy do you want
on that. If you want a more dynamic economy with
more opportunity, then that's this is the way to get it.
And I believe you talk about political risk people of

(06:31):
the EPSOM Electric. You know, they didn't get there by
being the kind of people that don't want to see
opportunity and dynamism in the economy and that's exactly what
this policy.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
Is about, right David, thank you. I really appreciate time
is always and good work on the malatone and next.
David Cema, Associate Health Minister. For more from Hither Duplessy
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