London Mayoral candidate Rob Blackie has criticised the Government’s ban on Nitrous Oxide which, as the BBC reports, has come into force
Now categorised as a class C drug, possession of laughing gas for its “psychoactive effects” will carry a sentence of up to two years in prison.
The government says the ban will combat anti-social behaviour and reduce damage to users’ health.
Experts previously warned against a ban saying it would be disproportionate to the level of harm it causes.
Nitrous oxide is regularly used as a painkiller in medicine and dentistry. When mixed with oxygen, it is known as “gas and air”, which can help reduce pain during childbirth.
But it is also one of the most commonly used recreational drugs by 16 to 24-year-olds. It causes short-term euphoria but can damage the nervous system.
Under the new rules, those found in unlawful possession of the drug could now face a prison sentence or unlimited fine, with up to 14 years for supply or production.
Rob said:
The Conservative Government’s new ban on laughing gas is just wasting the police’s time – precious time that should be spent on serious and violent crimes.
With all the exemptions, the ban is going to be pretty unenforceable. Officers are going to spend huge amounts of time on paperwork in the office having to justify their work.
To win back the trust of Londoners, the Met Police has to focus on tackling serious crime – not spend more time running around chasing low-level drug offences.
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12 Comments
Agreed ….Nanny state mentality – how very liberal..
The proposed cigarette increase in purchasing age for every year – will lead to (in time) a 36 year buying some fags at the newsagents & his 35 year old mate unable to do the same ….Utterly ridiculous…People walking around in their 30s with a passport on them to buy some fags ….! A black market paradise if ever there was one …
Rob Blackie is a very good candidate, I agree with his views on ULEZ and housebuilding as well.
We have seen tonight the damage that this substance does to the spinal chord removing the protective lining. So a ban is perhaps a good idea. I certainly would not listen to the libertarians like BoJo after his record.
It is not a waste of time and I agree with Tim Rogers. The canisters not only cause a huge litter problem where I live but also lead to anti social behaviour towards passers by when they’re being inhaled. My Safer Neighbourhood team know quite a bit about that. It can be quite intimidating but then if you’ve never experienced that behaviour you wouldn’t care anyway. The government have got this right and I agree with them 100%. Social liberals are not libertarians either.
@Tim …If the argument is purely down to health grounds – then what else shall we ban – where does it stop ? ….We might as well all sit at home around a log fire with a wooly jumper on eating chick peas ,.
A knee jerk reaction to a small problem.Create an ”illegality’ to then ban it.It shows them ‘tough on crime’.It has been used by youth for years in there social circles for pleasure.Driving it under the counter just makes more of the young into criminals.They have enough problems as it is.Are the govnt going to provide non criminal/fun entertainment.?
Where does banning stop?You can no longer find ordinary cutlery knives (in packs of six) in supermarkets,dangerous they say.Will it be cutlery forks next as they may ,alledgedly, be used to stab people!
Agree that it is a waste of time – continuing Prohibitionist attitudes towards psychoactive substances isn’t working, and the harms of nos have increased because of PSA2016, which marked a shift towards consumption of larger canisters due to sales restrictions.
Even one of our councillors, Dr David Nicholls, who has campaigned about the harms of high consumption of nos disagrees with it being a scheduled drug and his campaign has been on enforcing current regulation on sellers. I disagree that PSA is the right way to enforce and ensure safety.
@ Jason and Tim – it isn’t purely a libertarian view to oppose such a ban, trying to determine possession for personal consumption would be hard to enforce, especially after consumption. Government (rightly) recognised that a licensing scheme for legislate use would be high pressures on catering and other non-medical uses – they just wanted to appear tough on asb instead. If you want to tackle litter, deal with it via recycling incentives, the new ban will do little on tackling that when people are already buying nos off street dealers (very easily too.)
ALAL – Anything Liberal’s Actually Libertarian
It is not hard to enforce as safer neighbourhood and safer spaces teams know the problems in their own communities. Users dump the canisters everywhere and they end up in landfill so the comment on recycling is a misnomer. The ban will deter use and ASB. It has a become a problem more in recent years so the government, as are many councils, are responding to local residents concerns including council tenants where use can be rife on estates. It’s all well and good living in upper middle suburbia but many of us in council blocks welcome these initiatives to tackle ASB and crime. There should also be more youth projects and activities, many of which have been cut back, to divert young people away from drug use leading to crime and ASB. Over 75% of residents in my labour run area supported fines for the consumption of drugs or psychoactive substances in public spaces.
On the day of the announcement, there were several news items interviewing people whose health had been greatly damaged by overuse of nitrous oxide. So apparently there is cause for concern.
I have noticed the small ampoules littering the streets from time to time, but a couple of weeks ago, I found two large aerosol containers (perhaps half a litre each) in the street. Googling the name on the label showed that they had contained nitrous oxide, presumably intended for catering use.
Neither banning something outright nor telling people it is bad for them are very effective against substance misuse. More nuanced approaches are needed.
@Jason not sure if you’ve ever seen a classification of a substance under the misuse of drugs act deterring ASB properly, because I sure haven’t – if you have I’d gladly like to see the evidence. It is correct that youth projects have been underfunded, that doesn’t necessarily square with the need for criminalisation of possession of nos for example. It was already illegal to supply nos for use wrt psychoactive effects – that’s what drove sales to larger canisters, and without enforcement on stores. Lack of legal licensing is to blame for increased use, and lack of widespread recycling schemes to tackle increased litter – as I said before. The idea that we should just support the ban and increased fines/other penalties just because its publicly supported sounds odd to come from someone on a liberal website – we should be more critical and convey that! Singling out council estates too seems classist really.
Ian is right there is cause for concern on direction of use+ the idea bans won’t work to keep people safe or prevent misuse. We need to be more vocal about what we’d do differently rather than just hiding behind a residents poll and support an approach that’s had over 50 years worth of evidence to show it doesn’t work.
As ever with drugs, I don’t know if a ban is the right way to go but we should be trying to ensure as few people as possible partake and as few people (ideally zero) abuse the substance.
I’m not sure the argument should be made on police not having time and should be focusing on serious crimes. A) it opens up questions about why there are so few police and this can be traced back to LD’s, b) going down argument that police don’t have time for crime and/or paperwork seems like a bad place to go as it may start discussion about how many/what crimes should be accepted and c) I doubt major criminal start with major crimes and probably start with enjoying reckless and damaging behaviour, then get promoted to creating reckless and damaging behaviour before moving towards creating seriously criminaly behaviour.