More and more people are receiving serious neurological damage due to long -term use of nitrous oxide – now it is banned
Each week, one for two young people seeks care at Capio St Göran’s emergency room with serious symptoms of neurological injuries. They come to the emergency room with poor balance, lost feeling and difficult to control the bladder. Some are confused and exhibit dementia -like symptoms, although they are young, the doctors say.
– Nowadays, one of the first questions we ask is when young people seek for neurological symptoms if they regularly use nitrous oxide. Many of them confirm it, says Ida Wahlström, neurologist and assistant physician Capio S: t Göran in Stockholm.
She and her colleague Neuroradiologist Lucas Lönn show pictures taken by a magnetic camera. The damage to the spinal cord that long-term use of high doses of nitrous oxide provides is clearly visible in the form of a V-shaped edema.
– The nitrous oxide destroys the important vitamin B12, which is part of creating the nerves’ safeguard. Most patients are restored and the edema disappears, but today we know far too little about what permanent injuries may also happen and what consequences it will have for patients well into the future, Lucas Lönn notes.
The risk they run – if the long -term used large amounts of nitrous oxide – is also that they get blood clots in lungs or brain.
Now on Wednesday clubs The Riksdag through a law prohibiting the sale of nitrous oxide to persons under 18 years. For private individuals over 18 years, the purchase is limited to a high 18 grams per occasion, which corresponds to two normal -sized containers.
– It’s a big, important step. The fact that young people are at high risk of serious injuries, while people who can often be linked to other forms of crime make big money on it without being able to stop has been extremely frustrating, says Jakob Forssmed, Minister of Social Affairs (KD), who has pushed on the issue.
The law, which comes into force on July 1, means that the Public Health Authority is given a new assignment: to issue permits to sell nitrous oxide and to exercise supervision. The police are also given the right to seize and forfeit nitrous oxide that should obviously be used for intoxication.
– The law does not come a day too soon. In our world, it should have been rapid and banned five to six years ago. There is a risk that we have already shot in front of us a whole generation of nitrous oxide users who will get lasting, neurological but, says Lucas Lönn.
The nitrous oxide sailed up as an alternative intoxicant among young people in the 2010s. The trend appeared both in the street scene and on the internet. The dealers of so -called cream siphons with associated cartridges increased greatly – without the customers in the first place intending to arrange cake party. In public, the trend appeared mainly in the form of debris – empty cartridges and tubes were found from time to time in drives.
– That it has been legal to use it has probably contributed to the believe it is harmless. We are changing that now, says Jakob Forssmed, who already a year ago commissioned, among other things, the Public Health Authority and the county administrative boards to intensify the information campaigns on the harmful effects of the nitrous oxide.
– It is not dangerous to test on a single occasion. But we look at the development as more and more individuals are showing an increasingly extensive abuse, says Ida Wahlström, who increasingly encounters cases where a person consumes between 100 and 200 balloons nitrous oxide per day.
At the same time, it is also clear that some individuals, who may already have a lack of vitamin B12, can suffer major damage even from a « moderate » intake. Christine Svärd, 37, Was paralyzed After taking nitrous oxide for four months in connection with a party once a week.
The nitrous oxide is considered However, at present, not physiologically addictive. Anyone who ends gets no withdrawal and with supplements of the vitamin B12, even those who have large, visible damage to the spinal cord can become healthy relatively quickly. But many also have lingering problems and may never fully get their cognitive functions back.
Last summer, the Poison Information Center raised alarm that the use of nitrous oxide doubled. 539 individuals got so sick that hospital care was required in 2024. In the first half of this year, Capio Sankt Göran has already received more patients than during the first half of 2024.
– We see no slowdown. However, patients seem aware of the risk of injury, there are even those who take vitamin supplements in advance because they think it reduces the risk, but it does not work, says Ida Wahlström.
Someone public However, statistics on the number of cases that have demanded health care do not exist. There is no diagnostic code, but a simple blood test can prove if the cause of the symptoms is nitrous oxide.
A number of municipalities have already banned the use of nitrous oxide in public places, in France discussions are underway that Drug class The drug after a young female driver, high on nitrous oxide, mowed down four pedestrians at Avenue des Champs-Élysées. The four were injured for life.
– I can’t overlook what a drug classification would mean, there are legal uses that make it complicated. As I see it, the law we are now clubbing through enough powerful, says Jakob Forssmed.
The new law means that the person who intentionally or negligently sells nitrous oxide in violation of the provisions can be convicted of illegal handling of nitrous oxide to a fine or imprisonment for a maximum of six months.
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