The sale of laughing gas, or nitrous oxide, the second most popular recreational drug in Britain, is to be banned in the government’s clampdown on legal highs, Home Office ministers have announced.
The bill implementing the blanket ban on legal highs, to be published on Friday by the home secretary, Theresa May, will make clear that it extends to ‘hippy crack’, as the tabloids have dubbed nitrous oxide for human use.
The use of laughing gas as a recreational drug has increased rapidly in recent years, with more than 400,000 16- to 24-year-olds reporting taking it in the past year.
Nearly all inhaled the gas from a balloon to experience a short period of euphoria. It has been particularly popular at summer music festivals, with more than two tonnes of used cannisters picked up at Glastonbury last summer. Although many festivals have a policy of “no legal highs”, the sale of gas-filled balloons appears to be widely tolerated.
The legislation, being published on Friday, will make it illegal to produce, distribute, sell or supply “new psychoactive substances” in Britain, whether over the internet or through a high street ‘head shop’. It will not, however, make simple possession of legal highs a criminal offence.
The government’s own official advisers on drugs stopped short in March of recommending a ban on nitrous oxide, saying that deaths linked to the gas were rare, and suggested working with the chemical industry to better understand the risks and with health authorities to prevent thefts from hospitals.
The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) noted that there were five deaths in Britain in 2010 and one in 2011 related to its use. “These have been due to asphyxiation resulting from hypoxia (lack of oxygen). A number of the deaths involved the use of nitrous oxide in an enclosed space,” ACMD chairman, Professor Les Iversen, told the home secretary.
The ACMD said that the latest data showed that 7.6% of young people aged 16 to 24 had tried laughing gas in the past 12 months and it was now the second most popular recreational drug in Britain after cannabis.
Ministers say that the blanket ban on legal highs will not affect the legitimate uses of nitrous oxide, which are widespread and include its use as an anaesthetic in childbirth and dentistry, and as a propellant in whipped cream aerosols. Discovered by Joseph Priestly in 1772, laughing gas parties were popular in both the UK and America in the Victorian period.
The definition used in the Home Office bill implementing the ban on legal highs is widely drawn and covers “any substance intended for human consumption that is capable of producing a psychoactive effect”. Ministers have acknowledged that this definition is so wide that it will catch everyday stimulants such as tobacco, alcohol and caffeine, and that the bill will include a list of exemptions for legitimate substances with provision to extend it further.
The bill also includes powers to shut down websites, and powers for the police to enter and search premises by warrants if necessary, and seize and destroy legal highs. It will also include civil sanctions – prohibition notices and orders – to tackle their sale on the high street.
The introduction of a similar law in Ireland in 2010 led to the disappearance of nearly 100 high street ‘head shops’ selling legal highs and drug-related paraphernalia.
The blanket ban will end the ‘substance by substance’ approach, which has seen more than 500 new legal highs – many of them synthetic chemical compounds designed to mimic the effects of traditional illicit drugs such as cannabis and ecstasy – banned in Britain.
The Home Office policing minister, Mike Penning, said: “Young people who take these substances are taking exceptional risks with their health, and those who profit from their sale have a complete disregard for the potential consequences. That’s why we are targeting the suppliers.
“The landmark bill will fundamentally change the way we tackle new psychoactive substances – and put an end to the game of cat and mouse in which new drugs appear on the market more quickly than the government can identify and ban them,” he said.
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