In a commentary we published earlier this week, a Bay Area doctor describes finding his partner dead a few feet away from hundreds of empty nitrous oxide cartridges.
For the uninitiated, nitrous oxide is commonly known as laughing gas. It’s used for anesthesia in childbirth, diagnostic procedures and dentistry. It’s also used in cooking as the propellant for whipped cream.
And it’s an addictive party drug that provides short bursts of euphoria but can kill you. Also known as Whip-Its, Noz or N20, nitrous oxide is easily accessible because of a provision in California law allowing its sale to adults as long as it’s not going to be inhaled. Smoke shops regularly ignore that restriction in the law.
Dr. Mohamed Aboukilila reports that his partner was able to purchase thousands of nitrous oxide cartridges within blocks of her San Francisco apartment where she died. During the pandemic, the local smoke shop would even deliver them to her door.
Similarly, Barbara Lodge, who has pressed for reforms since her son started abusing nitrous oxide, walked into a Los Angeles smoke shop, told the salesperson she was planning a party and asked if they had Whip-Its. She was led to a plastic bin brimming with colorful balloons that are used to inhale the drug and cases of nitrous oxide canisters.
The abuse of the drug and retailers’ abuse of the law has been going on far too long. It’s time for California legislators to stop ignoring it. The starting point should be banning sale of nitrous oxide by tobacco retailers. But that minimal attempt died when lawmakers buried Senate Bill 193 in 2019.
This year, state Sen. Jim Nielsen, R-Red Bluff, tried again with an even more limited approach, Senate Bill 491, which would tighten regulation of nitrous oxide sales in smoke and tobacco shops, and increase the penalties for violations. It’s not enough. But it’s a start. Lawmakers should be eager to toughen the bill and pass it.
They should. But on Thursday, Nielsen’s office learned that state Sen. Anthony Portantino, D-La Canada Flintridge, the powerful chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, plans next week to block the bill from a vote — placing it on the “suspense file” where bills are sent to die.
Lawmakers should be embarrassed. The move couldn’t come at a worse time.
In 2018, the Journal of Neurology said nitrous oxide “abuse is rapidly rising” in the United States. That year, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that 2.7% of adolescents age 12-17 and 1.5% of young adults age 18-25 had used an inhalant such as nitrous oxide, gasoline or spray paint in the prior year.
A British government report in December found that nitrous oxide was second only to cannabis in use among those aged 16 to 24 in Britain. And, now, according to the New York Times, abuse of nitrous oxide seems to be on the rise in this country, fueled by the stress and isolation of the coronavirus pandemic.
It’s past time to act. But the state Legislature is paralyzed. It’s shameful.
