Doctor’s warning as more admitted to hospital after taking ‘hippy crack’
‘TERRIFYING’ numbers of Coventry teens and university students are being hospitalised after using ‘hippy crack.’
In the last five weeks alone there have been five admissions of people who had inhaled the gas in tiny silver canisters.
Healthcare bosses say an increasing number of patients admitted to hospital are young men and university students who are taking large quantities of nitrous oxide for social purposes due to it being cheap and readily available. They fear use of the gas, most commonly inhaled from a balloon, can cause neurological complications such as spinal cord and nerve damage.
Dr Holger Allroggen, consultant neurologist at University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW) NHS Trust, has admitted several young men with nitrous oxide neurotoxicity in the last two weeks. He said: “We are increasingly worried about the risk of serious harm to the nervous system as a result of abusing nitrous oxide.
“It can affect both the spinal cord and the nerves in arms and legs resulting in loss of feeling, abnormal sensations, loss of motor function and therefore variable degrees of limb weakness right down to paralysis. Treatment may or may not work and the resulting damage can be permanent, with no clear relationship between quantities of nitrous oxide taken and neurological damage.
“This self-inflicted damage is completely avoidable by not using nitrous oxide.” Such is the severity of the problem in the city that health bosses have joined forces with the council to hit home the dangers of the use of ‘laughing gas.’
Councillor Kamran Caan, cabinet member for public health and sport, said: “It is absolutely terrifying to see and hear of young people being paralysed by ‘laughing gas.’ “Teenagers and young men may always think it happens to someone else and won’t happen to them, which is why it is so important that we work with our partners to raise awareness and spread the message that these life-changing risks are not worth taking just because it is a cheap legal high.
“As a local authority we take these matters extremely seriously and there is a city-wide PSPO in place that allows officers to confiscate and dispose of any nitrous cannisters. This allows people to be fined if they refuse to give up their nitrous once challenged.
“The PSPO also gives the powers to fine people in possession of them if caught. The law as it currently stands means individual possession of nitrous is not an offence, but, if you sell it or pass a balloon to someone else, that is a criminal offence.
“It is a complicated matter, but if we identify patterns and locations then police patrols can look to address this. People can report to either the police or the council, online at: www.coventry. gov.uk/antisocialbehaviour.”