the Netherlands, where neurologists first warned two years ago that excessive use of laughing gas can lead to spinal damage, is to ban the drug with effect from January 1st next.
The Dutch tendency over the years has been to decriminalise rather than criminalise so-called “soft” drugs, but in the case of laughing gas – nitrous oxide – the government has decided to opt for an outright ban given the immediate and growing threat to health that it poses.
The colourless and odourless gas is sold in balloons that are filled from pressurised canisters – known as “whippets” – often at the side of the street during festivals or at parties, sometimes even at supervised parties where alcohol and other drugs are banned.
Symptoms develop gradually, often beginning with something as innocuous as a headache. They then typically develop into a tingling in the arms and legs that turns to numbness as it worsens. Where the effects develop into spinal cord injury, it can sometimes be permanent.
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A key problem, says Anne Bruijnes of the Dutch neurologists’ association, is that young people are frequently unwilling to talk about the symptoms when they begin to emerge, even to their friends. That means they’re typically discovered late.
The decision to ban has also been influenced by figures from the Trimbos Institute, which studies addiction. It says at more than 37 per cent of Dutch partygoers use laughing gas on a regular basis and that the heaviest use tends to be among “young adults”.
Dutch police statistics show that laughing gas had a role in some 1,800 traffic accidents over the past three years – including 63 involving fatalities and 363 where a driver or passenger was injured.
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Although laughing gas remains legal for the next five weeks, its use by drivers is already a criminal offence. The problem for police is that there is as yet no blood or saliva kit to test for it at the scene of an crash so officers typically use their own assessments, along with witness statements.
As a result, charges often faced by users after a road incident are aggressive or unsafe driving, driving under the influence, and in lesser cases, driving without a licence.
“People constantly underestimate the effect it has on their ability to drive, sometimes with dire and lasting consequences”, says police spokesman, Paul Broer.
In a bid to control the spread of the problem, a large number local authorities, including Amsterdam, have introduced bylaws banning the use of the gas in public pending the implementation of the January ban.
The Department of Justice confirmed that nitrous oxide will remain legal for medical and technical use, as well as in the food industry.
