Salfordians are being warned of the dangers of ‘excessive use’ of laughing gas after hundreds of canisters were dumped on a residential street.
The Nitrous Oxide canisters have been left scattered along Blackfriars, sparking warnings from drug awareness organisations.
The substance, which is deemed ‘very dangerous’ by drug awareness organisation Talk to Frank can cause user to fall unconscious and/or ‘suffocate from the lack of oxygen’.
Andre Belchior Gomes, communications lead from TalkingDrugs said “Nitrous oxide is a relatively safe substance to use as long as people understand the harms of repeated and excessive use. Its criminalisation, however, hasn’t shared any of this information; it’s just pushed its use further to the margins.
“Since NOS was criminalised, we haven’t seen any public campaigns to educate people about its potential harms, how to reduce them, and where to dispose of cannisters.
“We can’t keep people safe from drug harms if they don’t know about them. And we can’t inform people about drug harms if we use criminalisation as the only approach to dealing with drugs.”
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), there have been 56 deaths involving NOS in England and Wales, 45 of which happened since 2010.
NOS was criminalised in 2023 and categorised as a Class C drug with the possibility of 2 years imprisonment and unlimited fine.