Student to test ‘flawed’ laughing gas conviction

AN UNDERGRADUATE who became one of the first people to be convicted for selling laughing gas or “hippy crack” is to launch an appeal after similar court cases collapsed over confusion surrounding the law.

If successful, Nicholas Chroussis, 22, could force the Government to redraft laws meant to criminalise psychoactive substances once known as “legal highs”, raising the prospect they could again become legal.

Last year, a bill was introduced banning the sale of mind-altering products, including nitrous oxide or laughing gas. It has now emerged two court cases recently collapsed after a judge and the Government’s own expert witness said the gas was “exempt” because it is also a painkilling medicine and so it was not illegal to supply it.

Campaign groups said the law was “flawed” and called for a review of the legislation, forcing the Home Office to insist the drug remained illegal under the Psychoactive Substances Act.

Last night, Chroussis, a geography student at the University of Bath, said his conviction was “unfair” compared to those whose cases collapsed and he needed to test the law.

“I will fight it because it is unjust that I’ve been convicted when others have not,” Chroussis, from Wood Green, North London, said.

Chroussis pleaded guilty last month to possessing nitrous oxide with intent to supply when he went to the Boundary Festival in Brighton last year.

He was stopped by security staff who found 245 nitrous oxide canisters, a dispenser and 250 balloons used to administer the gas.

After changing his plea to guilty, he was given a six month suspended jail sentence and ordered to do 50 hours’ community service.

He claims he was persuaded to plead guilty by his legal team to avoid jail, but insisted that he had no intention of selling the gas, but merely “drew the short straw” among friends to carry the gas into the festival for them all to take.

“As university students we smoke a little cannabis, and about 80 per cent of students have inhaled laughing gas – it’s not cocaine or heroin. We are just having fun,” he said.

David Raynes, of the National Drug Prevention Alliance, insisted that the act needs a simple tweak.