TESTIMONY
Nitrous oxide, more commonly known as "laughing gas", has a misleading name since it can cost a life. It is found in whipped cream siphon cartridges sold in supermarkets, but its use can be diverted. This gas indeed causes an irrepressible laughter. But it is also very dangerous. Used repeatedly, it can cause neurological damage or respiratory distress. And there are three times more serious cases this year, according to health authorities.
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"It can affect healthy young people"
At very high doses, consumption of nitrous oxide can even lead to death. Nadine's son - Yohan, 19 - died two years ago of cardiac arrest after inhaling a nitrous oxide derivative. Today, this mother is speaking out so that other families do not experience this kind of drama. "Today, I appeal for help. Many young people are putting themselves in danger because they do not know that we can really die from it," she deplores. She recalls that no one is immune to the worst.
"My son had been using it for three months, only in the evening. We fell from above. We had never found anything in his room. It was a force of nature, so it can even affect young healthy people" . Nadine desperately hopes for action from the state: "There, I'm really starting to be angry because I feel helpless when for two years we have done everything to alert the authorities. It is becoming really urgent!"
"All French regions are concerned"
"We have taken a step. This nitrous oxide is now one of the products most consumed by young people," also warns the pharmacist of the national surveillance network, Joëlle Micallef. It is by the dozens that these small metal capsules, filled with an ultra powerful laughing gas, sometimes litter the gutters of cities. A scourge that the authorities still cannot stop, all the more since the deconfinement. "The fact that people find themselves in a group amplifies the dissemination of this product with the search for a festive effect. Now we can say that all the French regions are concerned", continues the specialist.
Prices below 40 cents per unit on the internet
Some college kids are addicted. Some, from the age of 13, seek the immediate effect of this gas. "Now we are talking about a protoxide bar like we are talking about a liquor bar in discotheques. It is even worse on the internet, since prices vary between 30 and 40 cents per capsule and at no time is it meant that it is dangerous for health or illegal, "laments Senator Valérie Létard, for whom gas has become commonplace. A bill to regulate its use is well in the pipeline in the National Assembly. But she is still waiting.