It’s about time there’s a legal high crackdown. If you look at things like Spice (a mock Cannabis) and PMMA (a fake MDMA), that have both killed people, it makes sense that the government would want to control the distribution of these drugs. But plans for new legislation, announced by home secretary Theresa May, state that it will also see those ‘dealing’ laughing gas and poppers criminalised.
While possession won’t become a criminal offence, it will be illegal to supply ‘new psychoactive substances’ to people. This is a change from the normal ‘substance by substance’ approach, which sees new (and dangerous) drugs tumbling onto the market before the powers that be have time to stop them.
But excuse us for a second, what is new exactly about poppers? They’ve been around for ages, sold in crates outside gay bars, or in the head shops you’d go along to as a teenager when you convinced yourself weed lollies were the height of gastronomical cool. As for laughing gas?
The Sun might have been excitedly writing about ‘hippie crack’ for the past year or so, and 400,000 young people aged 16 to 24 might have admitted to ‘taking’ it in the past year, but again, it’s been around for ages (since 1772, The Guardian reports).
Considering the elements to make ‘hippie crack’ are: balloons, canisters of nitrous oxide and soda streams, all totally legal things used at, say, children’s parties, birthing suites/dentists’ chairs and places serving whipped cream, it’s going to be tough to police sale of these elements. That’s why the government has said that, well, they won’t just blanket ban nitrous oxide. Instead, they’ll work on shutting down websites selling them, and work with companies to make sure people aren’t going around nicking the canisters from hospitals and dentists’ surgeries.
Mike Penning, the Home Office policing minister, 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.’
We’re guessing the suppliers will immediately dry up (should the bill be passed – this is currently just a proposal that might by some turn never make it through Parliament to become law). But as silly as it is to imagine someone stealthily handing over a fistful of inflated balloons at a festival for £2 a go without the powers-that-be seeing, it’s silly to imagine this fad is over.
And why should it be? says Professor David Nutt, the former chief drugs adviser (sacked after saying alcohol was more dangerous than many other illegal drugs): ‘It will make no difference. People will just go back to cocaine and heroin. It’s an extraordinarily simplistic and retrograde step. It won’t reduce harms, it may well increase harms.’
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Picture: Eylul Aslan
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.