Driving while on Nitrous Oxide

[Estraya]

I called the police today about people sat in a car outside my house filling balloons with Nitrous Oxide and inhaling it. They've been doing this every night for about a week. They've been so noisy, which has been a pain as it's so hot we've needed the windows open at night. They were chucking the cannisters and balloons out of the car into the street today. At one point they drove off (very badly - really struggled to get around the bend in the road) then came back and did some more balloons. The police actually showed up and saw them shuffling the car back and forth (my neighbour has called multiple times with no response) but all they did was speak to them for about 30 seconds. Then the police drove off in one direction and the car drove off in the other. I know possession of NO is not illegal but driving under the influence definitely is. Anyone with police knowledge able to explain this to me?

The problem is we can't test for the presence of it in your system. Its no like alcohol or drugs. So we need to see that the person's driving is impaired in someway.

It's breathed out quickly isn't it?

Out of interest what is the legitimate use for those little CO2 canesters?

Never seen them do it but I've seen plenty of the empties strewn all over the place.

Sorry. Didn't me CO2 meant the nitrous oxide. I know it has medical uses but why those little bottles.

They are used in the catering industry. Whipped cream etc etc

It's out of the system within a minute or so.

The effects of nitrous last about a minute at max.

People can drop dead from laughing gas, and have done.

The cannisters drive me nuts! Where we live, people throw them over our garden fence all the time and it drives me insane. Use. The. Bin.

The sort of people who take this stuff are scum so unsurprising they throw rubbish in your garden.

A minute or so of driving when not in control is enough time to have an accident.

@ButterCrackers agreed. Shame it's not banned.

It's not really any different to driving home after a medical/dental procedure with nitrous.

It’s not true that it’s out of your system in a minute or so. There is recent research which shows that cognition and Co-ordination is affected for a long time afterwards and there are long term effects on memory. Apparently people are starting to take b12 to counter these effects but research suggests it doesn’t work.

I only know this because I was at a meeting last week when the head of our local drug and alcohol service told us all.

We watched one of the Police Interceptor programs on TV the other evening (yes, we are sad and love watching this stuff), they had a car full of the stuff, but they said they couldn't test for it. They did the coke, pot and breath test and all was ok, so had to let them go.

Unfortunately it's a standard, legal catering product that's being misused. Banning it would be like banning glues or aerosol cans because these are misused by people to get a high.

They already have an over minimum 18 sales age so our only alternative is roadside impairment tests. You can't prove the use of these things but failing a simple impairment test should get your keys taken from you at the very least.

and you shouldn't do that either.

I have absolutely no legal knowledge at all but if someone is driving like a prat and weeving all over the road the police should be able to pull them over and have them charged for 'driving without due care'. That would apply whether it was because they were inhaling nitrous oxide, or putting on eye liner, or playing the trumpet (people stuck in heavy traffic in Los Angeles get up to some weird things).

You can drive home after a dental procedure with nitrous oxide. I’ve been offered a choice between sedation and nitrous oxide and on the leaflet where they talk through pros and cons it says the pro of nitrous oxide is you can drive yourself home.

like others have said it leaves your system within a minute. So chances are they’re not going to finish inhaling and immediately drive. They’re going to sit and “enjoy” the sensation and only drive when it’s worn off. Even if they don’t the police can’t test for it so would need to see careless/reckless driving.

No real @QuintanaRoo www.dentalhealthcareeoe.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/0703-Inhalation-Sedation-Adults.pdf

There might be a difference between a mild, carefully administered dose by a professional of medical grade gas, and a wildly random amount done in a car.

Well that leaflet is different to mine from a different area. I’d like to see the evidence base where they get the two hours from. I’m a midwife and I promise you it’s out the system very quickly, it has a half life of only a few minutes and that is not dependent on dose. If a woman in a clinic was to have some to help her tolerate a sweep I’d be happy for her to leave and drive herself home straight after. We don’t tell women to wait two hours.