Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Comhghairdeas to the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan. In recent months my local parks in Lucan, Clondalkin, Palmerstown and Rathcoole have become littered with strange shiny silver bullets. Many people were shocked to discover that these objects are the residue of a new drug abuse craze among young people. Teenagers are inhaling nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas, from these bullets to get high.`

While this craze is new in Ireland, we can see the path it leads to from the experiences of other countries. In the UK, one in 11 young people now use nitrous oxide. That is higher than the proportion of young people who use cocaine or ecstasy there. Young Dutch people started experimenting with one or two cartridges but this escalated to the point where abuse is running rampant and is now out of control in the Netherlands. A report by the National Information Centre on Poison in the Netherlands highlights a shocking increase in the number of people consuming 50 cartridges a day. Some young people are consuming as many as 100 cartridges a day through balloons.

It is becoming the drug of choice for young people and the consequences are chilling. In the Netherlands the number of recorded cases of nitrous oxide damaging health has increased tenfold in a four-year period. More than one in three Dutch partygoers now uses nitrous oxide on a regular basis. Some 64 young adults in the Netherlands have been hospitalised in the past two years alone. While too many young people see it as harmless fun neurologists are crystal clear about its long-term consequences. The gas depletes the body's store of vitamin B12. This can cause spinal cord damage and is leading to young people being diagnosed as paraplegic and becoming wheelchair-bound. The average age of Dutch patients confined to wheelchairs as a result of abusing laughing gas is just 22 years of age. In the UK, according to its official statistics, nitrous oxide has been linked to 17 deaths within three years. Tragically, we have suffered our first deaths as a result of this scourge with the media reporting deaths in Millstreet in County Cork and Tallaght in Dublin.

The easy availability of nitrous oxide really is shocking. If one types "buy nitrous oxide" into a search engine now one will see an ad displayed, which the search engine is paid to show, for a website hosted in Ireland, selling these capsules. They are sold under a brand called "Whip-it!" as a 50 pack of whipped-cream chargers. While this appears to be a business supplying the product for legitimate reasons, the comments on the website by purchasers gives the game away. One customer testifies that they "...had zero problems. Works good for whip cream and to trip out...". Another jokes: "This stuff really 'whipped' my cream, if you know what I mean!". "Feels good..." says another happy customer. This comes from a .ieregistered website and that site should not be selling a product that is clearly and obviously being abused. We need to nip this in the bud by acting now. We need a clear strategy to tackle this problem head on before it escalates out of control.

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