We must do more to protect youth from danger of laughing gas as Amazon stops sale of nitrous oxide canisters
IRISH Amazon customers can no longer buy dangerous nitrous oxide, aka laughing gas.
The substance, which gives users a quick high when inhaled, could be bought for just 30c per canister.
Amazon confirmed they were pulling it from sale due to concerns over how it could be transported safely, rather than its rising use as a recreational drug.
Over 80,000 canisters have been seized in Ireland already this year, and nitrous oxide, which is sold on the street for €1 a pop, is linked to a number of deaths in the UK.
Fine Gael TD Emer Higgins is calling on Google to follow Amazon and stop advertising nitrous oxide. And she calls for further action to clamp down on its use before people die here too.
CANISTERS 'LITTERING THE GROUND'
MANY of us got to know our local areas very well in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.
As we took to the great outdoors, we noticed things that perhaps we hadn’t noticed before.
For me, it was during the early days of lockdown during walks in my local park in Lucan, when I first started noticing strange, silver bullets littering the ground.
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Soon afterwards, I discovered these products are in fact canisters of nitrous oxide, used in catering for the purpose of whipping cream — but instead used increasingly as a popular recreational drug due to the brief high that it emits when inhaled.
Also known as laughing gas, nitrous oxide is the tenth most popular illegal drug in the world according to the 2019 Global Drug Survey.
'POPULAR AMONG IRISH TEENS'
Concerningly, its use as a drug is becoming popular among Irish teens, which is why I welcomed Amazon’s decision this week to cease selling the canisters in Ireland.
While Amazon have done this due to concerns around the safe transportation of nitrous oxide, it nevertheless will have some impact on the ease of access to the substance online.
I’m now calling on Google to follow suit and prevent advertising nitrous oxide on their platforms immediately.
In my view, it’s unacceptable that any company should profiteer from this growing problem by selling ads for nitrous oxide gas canisters and I have written to Google to ask them to take action urgently.
I think easy access is a huge issue. It’s far too straightforward for anyone of any age with access to the internet to pop online and order nitrous oxide to their home in a couple of clicks.
Education is also a factor and we must inform young people of the associated dangers of nitrous oxide.
STOP ADVERTISING
But we also need to make it more difficult to get a hold of and we certainly shouldn’t be advertising it. That is wholly irresponsible.
This week, I was informed that Revenue had made eight seizures of nitrous oxide in 2020, consisting of 33,600 canisters and five seizures consisting of 82,200 canisters in 2021.
Nitrous oxide obviously has legitimate uses, but Revenue only carry out these seizures when they believe the product has not been purchased for legitimate use and the seizure of over 100,000 canisters is a very concerning amount.
It’s far from harmless fun. Last year nitrous oxide was added to the HSE’s dangerous drugs list and there are reports of a growing number of people being admitted to hospital with brain damage and paralysis, because of nitrous oxide use.
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My fear is that the problem will only grow if we don’t take action now.
I welcome the fact Amazon will no longer be selling nitrous oxide in Ireland and I hope Google will follow suit and stop advertising it also.
We owe it to our young people to act responsibly on this issue and prevent them from going down what is a potentially fatal path of using nitrous oxide.