Inside the Laughing Gas Black Market

Overview

British people use Nitrous oxide more than any other country in the world, and it recently became the second-most popular drug in the UK. The media became obsessed with the drug after a handful of deaths associated with it – often over-inflating its dangers. The government’s response has been to include it in the Psychoactive Substances Act. This is a law that came about in response to the popularity of legal highs, putting a ban on the sale of anything that can change your mental state (except alcohol, cigarettes, and coffee). Now, selling nitrous carries a sentence of up to seven years. We set out to discover what happens when you ban a substance overnight, and how dealers will continue to supply Britain with its best-loved gas.