Prosecuting those in possession of laughing gas will not tackle antisocial behaviour, argues Dr David Turner
The Government is going to ban laughing gas.
Yes, home secretary Suella Braverman has announced a plan to make the possession of nitrous oxide a criminal offence in England and Wales with the aim to prevent ‘hordes of youths loitering in and littering parks with empty canisters’. This is despite the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs concluding that nitrous oxide should not be banned but rather illegal supplies of the drug should be tackled.
Nitrous oxide is one of the least harmful of all the commonly abused substances. Ex-government drug adviser Professor David Nutt points out that there is around one death per year in the UK from around 1 million nitrous oxide users, while there are around 28,000 deaths per year in the UK from around 40 million alcohol users.
Now, it is true that nitrous oxide can cause neurological problems if heavily abused as it can block the effect of vitamin B12. I have heard rumours of ‘posh’ nitrous parties, hosted by anaesthetists, who preload their guests with vitamin B12 beforehand to prevent these complications.
In the scheme of things, when compared with alcohol or smoking, nitrous oxide is a fairly safe drug. But I do know what Braverman means about canisters littering our parks – in some areas of London, street sweepers would do better with a large magnet than a broom. There is also the issue that nitrous oxide is a pretty awful greenhouse gas, so there are some good reasons to restrict it.
The problem is that we have many decades of pretty robust evidence to show what happens when something is restricted or banned. The supply of it will move into the hands of criminals, the price will go up and the quality down. Directly and indirectly, this will stoke crime and probably more hospital admissions as we do not know what cheaper gases criminals would ‘cut’ the nitrous with.
The other point that the Government seems to have missed is, what do they think teenagers will do if they are not in the park inhaling laughing gas? They are not likely to spend their time in the library reading Chaucer instead. No, they will most likely abuse something else, such as cannabis. Or maybe they will stick to the drugs the Government chooses to not make illegal, such as alcohol and tobacco.
If nitrous oxide is banned, it may lead to less canister litter in our parks. Though I suspect that we would soon see even more smashed vodka bottles and cider cans in the flower beds.
Don’t get me wrong, abusing any substance is not something we should encourage, but there is a section of society that will always find something to abuse, no matter what the Government does.
Perhaps some sort of age restriction on the sale of nitrous oxide (which apart from being a useful anaesthetic is widely used to make whipped cream) would be a good idea.
But a prison sentence for possession, really? That is seriously not funny.
Dr David Turner is a GP in Hertfordshire. Read more of his blogs here
Oh c’mon – prohibition has such an exemplary track record for curtailing people’s behaviour! 🙄 Politicians just wanting a quick popularity fix with the Daily Wail wielding masses to denigrate the yoofs whilst drinking excessive amounts of lager and proclaiming that they’ve “never done drugs”.
The country has a laughable attitude to drug use and as Prof Nutt has pointed out more times than enough, many illegal drugs have a far better safety profile than the legal ones. Madness, as expected from Cruella Braverman
So there’s 60 people, approx, in my town ‘users’ of laughing gas.
No wonder there is a shortage of whipped cream!
I always thought it was made with a whisk – that’s what we had to use when I was young – and we never left our whisks lying around in the parks, we could not afford to.
Would it not be easier just to stop manufacturing little cannisters of the stuff at BOAC?
Should we have more contempt for the politicians who believe they are right, or for the ones who know they are only doing this for the malignant effect it has on society.