A Serious Matter: Laughing Gas Prompts Review of UK’s Psychoactive Substances Act
Introduced in 2016, The Psychoactive Substances Act is designed to deal with the influx of new drugs often labelled ‘legal highs’.
The Act bans any substance that "by stimulating or depressing the person’s central nervous system… affects the person’s mental functioning or emotional state."
It exempts substances such as tobacco or nicotine-based products, alcohol, caffeine, as well as medical products as defined in the 2012 Human Medicines Regulations.
Nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, is regularly taken as a recreational drug. However, the substance is also used by doctors for pain-relief, often during child-birth, for example.
Hence, two lawyers in two separate cases in the UK have recently argued that their client ought to be deemed ‘not-guilty’ of intent to supply a banned substance.
As a result, the cases have collapsed.
According to Naimh Eastwood, the Executive Director of drug charity Release, the latest developments expose a fundamental flaw in the current UK law relating to psychoactive substances.