The police are investigating whether it is possible to detect the use of laughing gas in breathing air. For example, motorists who consume nitrous oxide while driving may still be caught, Minister Dilan Yeşilgöz (Justice) wrote to the House of Representatives.
Unlike alcohol and various other drugs, nitrous oxide is not detectable in blood, urine, breath or saliva. This makes it impossible for the police to demonstrate the use of laughing gas in traffic. This is only possible in the act, which is almost never the case in practice.
With the help of TNO and the medical universities of Maastricht and Leiden, the police are trying to change this. The three are investigating whether there is a method to recover nitrous oxide. The results will follow at the end of this year.
63 fatal accidents
The use of nitrous oxide in traffic is extremely dangerous, as it causes a brief intoxication that can make users dizzy and sink. In the past three years, nitrous oxide has played a role in 1800 accidents, according to recent police figures. These included 63 fatal accidents and more than 360 serious injuries.
Last year, the police registered about 5,000 traffic incidents in which nitrous oxide may have been involved. For example, nitrous oxide attributes were found in a car, such as nitrous oxide tanks and balloons. In many cases, the police can then only prepare official reports of the violations detected. Another obstacle to enforcement in traffic is that the recreational use of nitrous oxide is not yet banned nationally.
Ban
As far as the cabinet is concerned, this will change and nitrous oxide will be included in the Opium Act. The problem is that the ban announced in 2019 has been delayed for the umpteenth time. Doctors raised the alarm about this on this site last month. They see young people with heart attacks and serious vascular problems as a result of excessive nitrous oxide use.
The nitrous oxide ban can now come into effect in January 2023 at the earliest, but then everything has to go well. If laughing gas is indeed banned, enforcement is expected to improve. Finding a nitrous oxide cylinder in the car is then sufficient for the police to demonstrate its use.
Moreover, a ban has a preventive effect. Now many young people think that laughing gas is not harmful, since its use is allowed. With a ban, the preparation, processing, processing, sale, delivery, provision, transport and the presence of attributes for laughing gas is punishable.
students
According to the Trimbos Institute, one in fifty Dutch adults used nitrous oxide in 2020. Among MBO and HBO students, more than 8 percent – about one in thirteen – recently used the drug. The use is also gradually increasing among secondary school students between the ages of 12 and 16.
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