Laughing gas ban delayed; Doctors concerned

A ban on the recreational use of nitrous oxide, better known as laughing gas, announced by the previous Cabinet in 2019 has again been delayed. The intended start date of January this year was first postponed to July and has now been pushed to 1 January 2023, AD reports. Doctors and addiction experts urge the Cabinet to act quickly, raising concerns about the severe health risks, particularly for young people among whom laughing gas is popular.

State Secretary Maarten van Ooijen and Minister Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius of Justice and Security have announced that they want the ban to take effect on 1 January 2023. If parliament approves adding nitrous oxide as a drug in the Opium Act, banning recreational use, in a vote next week, the amendment will go to the Council of State. If that goes smoothly, the bill can be implemented about eight months later.

But experts call on the Cabinet to speed things up. "The nitrous oxide ban should come into effect as soon as possible, yesterday rather than today," cardiologist Robert Reizebos of the OLVG in Amsterdam said to the newspaper. Excessive laughing gas use can lead to severe health damage. "In our department, we've had 20 young patients in recent years with major health damage, such as heart attacks and pulmonary embolism. Then you're talking about people in their twenties. A young woman eventually had to have a leg amputated."

The Trimbos Institute also calls for urgency. "Because nitrous oxide is now permitted, many young people think that its use is harmless," said Martha de Jonge, senior project leader for Drug Prevention at the institute. In 2020, one in fifty adults in the Netherlands used nitrous oxide. Among college and university students, that was about one in thirteen. The use is also increasing among kids aged 12 to 16, the Trimbos Institute warned.

Municipalities are also eagerly awaiting a national ban. Over half of them have already imposed local prohibitions over the past years. Road safety is also at stake. Recent police figures showed that nitrous oxide played a role in 1,800 traffic accidents in the past three years, causing 63 deaths and 362 serious injuries.

The Cabinet says it feels the urgency. "1 January 2023 is ambitious, but we're striving for it," a spokesperson for Van Ooijen said to AD. Yeşilgöz-Zegerius said on Thursday that she hopes to cut time by sending the bill to the Council of STat4e and the European Commission in Brussels at the same time.