BORED teens are playing “Russian roulette” with their lives by taking up to 20 hits of hippy crack a day, an MP has warned.
Labour’s Rosie Duffield is urging ministers to ban the sale of dangerous nitrous oxide to under-25s to tackle the deadly scourge.
She warned that youngsters are flocking to beaches and parks in their droves to get high on the drug – leaving silver canisters everywhere.
The Canterbury MP warned: “Kids don’t know what they are doing, they think it is harmless.
“But it’s like Russian roulette – you could be the person who loses their life.
“The police say kids are taking up to 20 a day, to keep feeling that high.
“But this is more dangerous than most people realise.”
Nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas or hippy crack, has been used as an anaesthetic for many years.
UNEXPLAINED DEATHS
It was banned as a recreational drug in 2016, but is easily available to buy online as it is used to whip up cream and make 99 ice creams.
As lockdown has eased, parks and beaches across Britain have been strewn with the silver capsules and balloons used to inhale the drug.
Ms Duffield, who will hold a debate on hippy crack in the Commons later urged No10 to toughen up the law.
She said: “You can get a little canister pack of 24 because people use it to whip up cream and in catering.
“It should be restricted to over 25s with ID, because if you have just come out of school and you are heading to the beach you don’t want to whip up cream.
“I am worried about more and more unexplained deaths.
“It is so readily available and so cheap the danger is we just dismiss it as a socially acceptable legal high.
“And it isn’t.”
A Home Office spokesman said: “The Government made it illegal to supply nitrous oxide for its psychoactive effects, with offenders facing a maximum sentence of seven years in prison, an unlimited fine or both.
“We’re giving police forces the resources they need to do their vital work, and we have also introduced public space protection orders so local authorities have tighter control over the consumption of these substances in public spaces.”
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