Governments around the world have cracked down on the recreational use of nitrous oxide – better known as laughing gas – in recent years. CNA finds out more about the situation in Singapore.
SINGAPORE: During a drug-fuelled Christmas party in Australia last year, Kevin was offered something he had not tried before – nitrous oxide, colloquially known as laughing gas.
“I was doing it for a few hours a day, just inhaling. I didn’t even want to inhale air. I just wanted to inhale nitrous oxide.” Common side effects include dizziness, nausea, fatigue, loss of balance, mild hallucinations and excessive sweating. Inhaling the gas also runs the risk of asphyxiation or suffocation.
, because it “falls under the category of substances which have a broad range of legitimate uses”, said the Ministry of Home Affairs. The Taipei Times reported that this came after the unregulated use of nitrous oxide for recreational purposes had risen in the past few months. The number of such cases in Taoyuan city jumped from 134 in 2019 to 455 in the first seven months of 2020.
FILE PHOTO: Festival goers inhale laughing gas at sunrise at the stone circle on the second day of Glastonbury music festival at Worthy Farm in Somerset, June 27, 2013. REUTERS/Olivia Harris/File Photoof laughing gas addiction in Singapore emerged in a psychiatry journal. “These chronic abusers may develop numbness or weakness of their limbs or encounter sustained clumsiness. These deficits may improve if the abuse is stopped, but some may never fully recover,” he added.
The psychotherapist said that in his personal view, criminalising reckless supply and the intent to supply it for recreational purposes should be the way to go, rather than making the possession of nitrous oxide an offence like how his native UK is looking to do.
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