Not a drug, but addictive, the seventh most popular drug abuse in the world is readily available online
What should young people do if they abuse laughing gas?
Investigate motives
Laughing gas, scientific name nitrous oxide, is a colorless and sweet gas, has anesthetic effect, often used as a food additive, such as for foaming cream, so it is also called "cream air bomb". Laughing gas is addictive, and smoking can make the facial muscles lose control, forming a weird dementia smile.
A large amount of laughing gas can produce a series of side effects such as hallucinogenicity and audiovisual dysfunction, which can seriously cause paralysis. In recent years, laughing gas has quietly become popular among some young people, and there have been frequent cases of death due to excessive consumption of laughing gas.
Because it is widely used in production and life, laughing gas is not included in the drug for control. So, where does the laughing gas that young people smoke come from? How to characterize the behavior of smoking laughing gas? And how to increase the regulation of laughing gas? With questions, the reporter conducted an investigative interview.
□ Zhang Shoukun and Sun Tianjiao, reporters of this newspaper
"Is there N2O (laughing gas)? What specifications and how is it sold? ”
"(Images of products) 10 sticks in a box."
"How to ship, will not be checked?"
"Send a courier, it will not be checked."
......
The above conversation took place between a reporter from the "Rule of Law Daily" and an e-commerce platform merchant, which originally sold cream foamers and labeled the gas as CO2 (carbon dioxide), and said after the reporter's inquiry that it could also sell N2O and corresponding equipment. The reporter then placed an order.
Three days later, the reporter received five boxes of "small steel bottles" printed with cream patterns on the outer packaging. On April 3, the reporter brought these "small cylinders" to the drug laboratory of the Tianjin Municipal Public Security Bureau's Anti-Narcotics Corps, and Ma Hua, a senior engineer in the laboratory and a first-level supervisor of police technology, recognized at a glance that the "small cylinders" brought by the reporter were exactly the same as the packaging of a batch of laughing gas previously seized by the case-handling department. "The probability is laughing gas, if you want to be 5% sure, you need to do further scientific experiments."
The journalist's purchase experience proves that laughing gas is very easy to obtain, which is one of the important reasons for the abuse of some young people.
A number of experts recently said in an interview with reporters that more and more teenagers smoke laughing gas out of curiosity or gregarious ideas, laughing gas is addictive, excessive smoking is extremely harmful to the body, and because of hallucinogenicity, it is easy to cause behaviors such as picking quarrels and provoking troubles, and the social harm is great. At present, it is still difficult to control the abuse of laughing gas, and it is necessary for the whole society to work together to popularize the harm of laughing gas and severely crack down on illegal laughing gas trading.
Drug abuse has become epidemic
Endangering health breeds crime
The sound of metal hitting the ground was constantly heard inside the house, and the sound of music came out through the door, accompanied by a squeak similar to deflating.
Recently, when the Shandong Dezhou police came to deal with a noise disturbance complaint, they found that four young people in the house had evasive eyes and nervous expressions, multiple balloons on the ground, and a silver-white cylinder gas tank and multiple light-colored balloons in the corner of the balcony.
The police then orally summoned the four young men to the police station for investigation. It turned out that when the four of them had dinner that night, one of them proposed to "cheer up", so they went to the rental house together to smoke laughing gas. At present, four people have been administratively punished, and the case is still under further investigation.
Coincidentally, recently, the police in Taizhou, Zhejiang Province, received a report from the public that someone in a rental house was suspected of taking drugs. The police immediately rushed to the scene to investigate and found a woman with confused eyes. After investigation, the woman's surname was Lin, and she saw someone selling laughing gas in the "circle of friends" that day, and she had the idea of smoking out of curiosity. She bought 840 bottles of laughing gas and invited two friends to smoke it together, and the three of them smoked 3 bottles of laughing gas in 8 hours.
According to the 2016 World Drug Survey released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, laughing gas has become the seventh most common drug abuse in the world.
MCA introduced that laughing gas is addictive and harmful, and after smoking laughing gas, blood oxygen saturation will drop rapidly, resulting in a series of symptoms such as dizziness, chest tightness, and uncontrolled limbs caused by lack of oxygen. Due to the short duration of pleasure, smokers often inhale repeatedly, further increasing the risk of hypoxia choking. Inhalation of large amounts of laughing gas can produce a series of side effects such as hallucinogenicity, delirium, visual and visual dysfunction, and reduced muscle contraction.
"Laughing gas will inhibit the body's absorption and metabolism of vitamin B12, and the lack of vitamin B12 will lead to inflammation of the nerve sheath, and cause spinal inflammation, muscle nerve atrophy and other symptoms, and in severe cases, it will cause physical paralysis, and even life-threatening." MCA said.
Li Wenjun, director of the Anti-Drug Theory and Policy Research Center of Chinese Minmin Public Security University, told reporters that the abuse of laughing gas is very harmful, not only will damage the physical and mental health of users, but also destroy the social atmosphere, breed illegal crimes, and bring unstable factors to society.
She further introduced that once laughing gas is addicted, it will produce similar addictive symptoms to other narcotics, such as the addict will be tired and lethargic, emotionally numb, silent, indifferent to the surrounding things, often expressionless to look at the sky, immersed in a semi-anesthetic state; Withdrawal symptoms can also occur. Laughing gas also has a certain degree of hallucinogenic effects, especially for long-term users, once overdosed, the potential harm will be doubled.
"Laughing gas abuse has become a difficult public health problem in some countries and regions. China's laughing gas abuse problem is also showing an increasingly serious trend, smoking laughing gas hallucinogenic caused by fights, disputes and other police situations are on the rise, due to the abuse of laughing gas to cause hallucinogenic, addictive, nerve-damaging individual mental problems, it is easy to cause quarrels and provoke troubles, fights, dangerous driving and other incidents, seriously endangering public safety. Li Wenjun said.
No qualifications are required
Laughing gas is easily available online
Laughing gas itself has been listed in the Catalogue of Hazardous Chemicals (2015 Edition), but it is not completely banned, and it can still be used as a food additive, such as for foaming cream, so it is also called "cream air bomb"; At the same time, it is a medical anesthetic with a slight anesthetic effect. This also gives some criminals an opportunity.
Reporters searching for "laughing gas" as a keyword on multiple e-commerce platforms either will not show any results, or the page will go to the "Green Net Project", which has publicity and popular science materials such as drug-related laws and regulations, harms and so on. But when the reporter changed keywords and searched for "cream gun bubble bomb" and "cream whisk", the style of painting changed abruptly, and shops with "small cylinders" as promotional pictures were listed.
It's worth noting that most of the images and names of these products are shown as "CO2". The reporter left a message to the customer service of one of the stores, saying that he wanted to make cakes, the CO2 effect was not good, is there any N2O to sell? The other party said that he would make a note without asking the reporter for any qualifications, and as long as he took a picture of the CO2 product link, N<>O would be shipped.
Another store customer service said, "This matter is not convenient to say on the platform, you can add social software to chat." After communication, the other party said that the other party said that the payment would be made after the price was corrected here, "Don't worry about transportation problems, we have signed an agreement with the courier company to ensure normal delivery." After receiving the goods, the reporter asked how to return the goods, and the other party also asked the reporter to contact the designated courier company and courier, and said "you can't send it yourself, you have to go through our channels."
The reporter randomly consulted 6 stores, 4 of which clearly stated that they had laughing gas for sale. It is worth noting that these stores are small and micro enterprises or have not uploaded business licenses, and cannot prove whether they have the qualification to legally produce and sell laughing gas. Every time a product link is sent, the platform will pop up "According to the provisions of the Regulations on the Safety Management of Hazardous Chemicals, no unit or individual shall operate laughing gas without permission." The platform prohibits the sale and recommends the sale of related hazardous chemicals, and once discovered, it will be strictly disposed of".
On some overseas social platforms, some people also peddle laughing gas to China, claiming that after paying the money, it can be delivered by courier on the same day. The reporter found that the price of laughing gas sold on domestic e-commerce platforms is generally a box of 10, 8g a piece, a box of 35 yuan, 5 boxes of 150 yuan, the more you buy, the cheaper the price; The price of laughing gas on overseas social platforms is generally 8g a piece, a box of 240 pieces 500 yuan.
The reporter immediately reported to the e-commerce platform that some stores sold laughing gas in violation of regulations, but with little success. The customer service staff said that they would severely punish the merchant and remove the relevant products. However, two days later, the reporter inquired and found that the store was still operating normally, and only the product purchased and complained about by the reporter was removed from the shelf, and the links to other so-called CO2 bubble bombs in the store still existed. The reporter searched on the platform with relevant keywords and found that the stores that had clearly stated that there was laughing gas for sale were also operating normally.
In view of the hidden laughing gas sales chain on the Internet, Li Wenjun believes that it is necessary to increase the intensity of online inspections of harmful information about laughing gas, pay close attention to online dynamics, focus on cracking down on the use of the Internet to induce consumers to buy laughing gas, and create a clear and civilized online space for teenagers.
It's a dangerous chemical, not a drug
It is difficult to determine the illegality of smoking
Although smoking is serious, laughing gas is not a drug.
Li Wenjun introduced that at present, the United Nations drug control conventions and no country has listed laughing gas as a drug for control, in China, laughing gas has been listed in the "Catalogue of Hazardous Chemicals (2015 Edition)", but has not yet been included in the list of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances. There are two main reasons for this: First, laughing gas is widely used in medical and health, food, industrial and agricultural production, etc., and if it is directly listed as drug control, it will seriously affect its legitimate needs other than drugs and production and business activities in related industrial fields. Second, as an addictive substance being abused, the research on pharmacology, toxicology, addiction, dependence, and harmfulness of laughing gas is not comprehensive, especially the on-site preliminary investigation, laboratory testing and identification technology and equipment after the human body smokes laughing gas are also difficult.
In Li Wenjun's view, this brings certain challenges to the current regulation of laughing gas. For example, the circulation links such as the source, sales, packaging, and use of laughing gas may involve different violations or deviant behaviors, and need to rely on different legal norms such as the Regulations on the Safety Management of Hazardous Chemicals and the Public Security Administration Punishment Law to deal with them. For another example, because laughing gas is not included in the scope of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances control, local public security organs mostly focus on reminding and educating abusing individuals, and cannot identify and investigate drug abuse behavior.
A public security policeman who has been working on the front line of drug control for a long time told reporters that according to the provisions of the criminal law, the judicial organs can currently pursue criminal responsibility for the crime of illegal business operation without a business license and illegal trading of laughing gas; According to the Public Security Administration Punishment Law, those who illegally possess or consume laughing gas will be given administrative penalties for "illegal use of dangerous substances".
"But in practice, the process of investigating and dealing with laughing gas may face various problems." The anti-narcotics police said that according to the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Ministry of Public Security's "Provisions on Standards for Prosecuting Economic Crime Cases", individuals or units engaged in other illegal business activities, and the amount of illegal business activities of individuals is more than 5,1 yuan, or the amount of illegal gains is more than 50,10 yuan; Only when the amount of illegal business operations of a unit is more than <>,<> yuan, or the amount of illegal gains is more than <>,<> yuan, the standard for prosecution is met. This amount of business is difficult to confirm in practice.
The anti-drug police told reporters that unlike drug addicts who can be detected by urine, blood, hair, etc., laughing gas is difficult to detect from the human body, and it can only be proved by catching the current or other ways to determine the smoking.
"It's really hard to spot and identify. For example, a cake shop bought 10 cans of laughing gas, 4 cans were enough, and the remaining 6 cans were all taken out and sold. Some enterprises have not established a perfect purchase and sales management system and long-term accounts for laughing gas, and fewer can not be found at all, even if they find a store, they can use normal wear and tear, improper management and other reasons to prevaricate. Moreover, many laughing gas cylinders do not have electronic labels, QR codes and other information, and cannot realize the whole link management of laughing gas production, operation, storage, transportation and use. The anti-narcotics police said.
Li Wenjun introduced that in the process of cracking down on the abuse of laughing gas, the public security organs are facing a series of problems——
Lack of experience in handling cases. Some local judicial organs have inconsistent understanding of the standards for cracking down on and handling cases involving laughing gas, and the disputes are large, and case-handling personnel lack relevant experience reference when facing laughing gas cases, and are not accurate in understanding the specifications of evidence and punishment standards, and are prone to fear difficulties.
The evidence is difficult to fix. Unlike common drugs, laughing gas has a very short body retention time after smoking and is difficult to detect by conventional means. Public security organs often lack substantive evidence to support such cases. If there is no relevant evidence such as chat records, transfer records, audio and video recordings, etc., a complete evidence chain cannot be formed, and it is difficult to effectively crack down on smoking personnel.
The source of the case is narrow. Similar to drug crimes, victims of laughing gas abuse are "hidden victims" who are often reluctant to cooperate with the police in order to obtain laughing gas. The clues reported by the masses are often poorly timely, and by the time the police arrive at the scene, the addicts have long disappeared.
"The problem of laughing gas abuse is a complex social problem that requires the joint efforts of the whole society. Only by taking a multi-pronged approach and making joint efforts can we break through the blocking points and pain points of laughing gas supervision and effectively build a defense line for the management of laughing gas abuse. Li Wenjun said.
To this end, she suggested that the illegal demand for laughing gas should be reduced through prevention education, and targeted publicity and education on the abuse of laughing gas should be carried out for key groups such as teenagers, so as to guide them to scientifically understand the harm of the abuse of laughing gas and effectively build a psychological defense line against the abuse of laughing gas. Reduce the illegal supply of laughing gas by combating crime, and continue to strengthen the crackdown on illegal trafficking of laughing gas under the framework of the existing legal system in accordance with "illegal business cases"; Reduce the social harm of laughing gas through treatment and rehabilitation, and provide rehabilitation treatment to people who abuse laughing gas addiction from both physical and mental aspects, help them successfully get rid of the entanglement of laughing gas, smoothly return to normal life, and effectively curb the spread of social harm caused by the abuse of laughing gas.