Revenue has publicised its request for aid in disposing of the hundreds of thousands of nitrous oxide canisters that have come into its possession in recent years through seizures.
Nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas, silver bullets and hippie crack, is a colourless, non-flammable gas that has grown in popularity as a recreational drug in the years since the Covid-19 pandemic.
Because of its numerous legal uses it is easily acquired, but Revenue has the power to seize the recognisable canisters where it is believed to be intended for illegal drug use.
In a document published on an official Government site, Revenue requests assistance “in clarifying its requirements and evaluating potential options for the provision of the disposal and/or recycling of large volumes of Nitrous Oxide canisters”.
Revenue notes its desire to see the canisters disposed of or recycled “in the most environmentally safe and the most ethically sound manner”.
The use of nitrous oxide as a recreational drug soared during the Covid-19 pandemic, resulting in the death of a 15-year-old in Tallaght who died after inhaling the gas in 2020.
Between 2021 and May 2023, Revenue made 193 nitrous oxide seizures, comprising just under 400,000 canisters. A single operation in December 2021 saw gardaí seize 59,135 nitrous oxide canisters at locations in counties Dublin and Westmeath, with an estimated value of over €1.9 million.
Its current stockpile consists of 32,000 canisters weighing 1.5 kg each and 119,000 “small bullet/ampoule type canisters” weighing 0.23kg each. At least another 31,100 1.5kg canisters would be ready for disposal by year’s end, it said.
Nitrous oxide’s popularity is becoming clearer, after placing 10th on the Global Drug Survey’s list of most abused illicit substances. A 2019 survey by the HSE and Trinity College Dublin stated that 25% of drug users who attended festivals that year consumed it.
A more recent 2022 study from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction found that one in four Irish people has tried nitrous oxide at some point.
Last month, doctors at a Dublin hospital described their worry about the number of teenagers presenting with frostbite injuries associated with the inhaling of nitrous oxide.
On that occasion, Consultant Paediatric Surgeon Dr Catherine de Blacam said: “We have seen a number of teenagers who are using nitrous oxide for recreation and as part of the process where they’re inhaling it, it has to be transferred from a canister into a balloon. The process of doing that cools the canister and the solution to really low temperatures (as low as -50C).”
“So the liquid can spill onto the skin or the canisters touch off the skin, causing really quite deep severe frostbite burns,” Dr de Blacam said, adding that “scarring is a really significant thing”.
“Some of the patients that we’ve had with even superficial burns around the lips and fingertips, they’re really sensitive areas, so they can end up with hypersensitivity in those areas which can take some months to resolve.”
They should ask ryan, he has all the answers, another tax would fix that one id say.
I’ll inhale them all for free, melt the cartridges down in my homemade smelter and sell the remainder to a scrap merchant.
This is the least of revenues problems with the shit show that coming our way.