“I didn’t picture being like this at 20 years old,” says Musa as his doctor wheels him into a room in a West Midlands hospital. “I don’t know how I’ll live if the outcome is I can’t walk properly again.”
Only a matter of weeks ago, Musa, not his real name, was carefree, having fun with his friends and thinking about his future. Now, he’s facing the potentially life-changing consequences of his nitrous oxide habit.
Nitrous oxide, more commonly known as “laughing gas” or “nos”, can give users a 30-second high that makes them feel dizzy and lightweight, but the gas is no laughing matter.
Amid reports from doctors of a spike in hospitalisations, the government is now considering stricter regulations around the use and sale of the gas.
Nitrous oxide is used legitimately in hospitals, dentists and professional kitchens but supplying it for its psychoactive effects is illegal.
Suppliers can get fined and receive up to seven years in prison, but only four people have been held in relation to nitrous oxide in the West Midlands since the Psychoactive Substances Act was passed in 2016.
Musa was rushed to hospital after he woke up in the night to go to the toilet and fell to the floor. He couldn’t get back up again because he’d lost feeling in his legs and feet.
In the weeks before, Musa was consuming multiple large canisters of nitrous oxide, almost on a daily basis.
His MRI scan shows he’s developed a spinal cord abnormality, and doctors can’t yet tell when or to what extent this will repair.
“This could be a permanent thing. It’s messed up my life. I’ve got dreams and ambitions,” Musa says, anxiously rubbing his knuckles.
The government is considering stricter regulation around the sale and use of nitrous oxide
According to Musa, buying laughing gas canisters from corner shops is as easy as buying a loaf of bread. Residents in his neighbourhood told Sky News they had seen school-age children hanging around outside these shops breathing in the toxic gas.
So, Sky News went undercover to investigate just how easy it is to buy.
We were given a list of shops that had already been reported to West Midlands Police as suspected of selling nitrous oxide.
Our reporter walked up to the counter of the first shop and asked for a canister. The woman replied, “Yes, which one? The big one?”.
She leaned down to pick up a canister bigger than a hairspray can from below the counter, popped it in a shopping bag, and offered a receipt for our £30 purchase.
The shop assistant puts a nitrous oxide canister in our bag
The Sky News team is led out the back of the shop to a stock of canisters
Read more: Laughing gas to be banned under anti-social behaviour crackdown
The next shop we entered took us through a door in the back to their stack of nitrous oxide canisters. They asked us to hand them our rucksack and they put the canister inside, no questions asked.
The shops didn’t ask how old we were or what we intended to do with the nitrous oxide, every shop added in a packet of party balloons which are commonly used to inhale the gas.
Dr David Nicholl, the clinical lead for neurology at Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust, says he sees dozens of patients aged 16-24 years old admitted to his ward every month for nitrous oxide abuse.
He says this is a huge rise from previous years and claims admissions have increased since large canister brands began to flood the market in 2021.
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While laughing gas is legal, it’s illegal to sell it knowingly for recreational use.
That rise is echoed in other cities. Data provided by the London Ambulance Service show that 999 calls for incidents relating to nitrous oxide more than tripled in a year, with 65 calls recorded in 2021, and 213 in 2022, up from 36 calls in 2018.
These patients can suffer from a range of problems, from loss of mobility to mental health issues and sexual dysfunction. Two nitrous oxide patients have even had to have drains inserted into their brains to save their eyesight.
In very severe cases the consequences can be deadly, with nitrous oxide related to the deaths of 62 people since 2001.
“Maybe once every five or six years, I’ll see a patient who’s had a stroke from taking cocaine. Yet, every week, I’m seeing this in my ward. So from my point of view, this is actually a bigger problem,” he said.
Dr Nicholl is aware of the easy availability of toxic gas in corner shops, and would like to see tougher policing of suppliers.
Minister for policing, Chris Philp, has called on the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to provide advice on tackling nitrous oxide abuse by the end of February.
“It shouldn’t be legal, definitely not,” Musa says. “There’s been times I’ve been in a car with a balloon bigger than the size of my head.”
But some think a clamp down on nitrous oxide use is unwise.
Harry Sumnall, a professor in substance use at Liverpool John Moores University said: “Drug laws are a blunt instrument and are not an effective health improvement tool for users.
“Criminalisation actually poses the risk that users could be diverted to other substances, and if it becomes illegal they might be encouraged to buy from the dark web.
“There are more than 600,000 nitrous oxide users in the UK, and most people, if they are using it, are going to be using it a few times a year, at really low levels of risk.”
Sky News tried to buy laughing gas at corner shops as part of our investigation
Since we last spoke to him, Musa has been discharged from hospital. He went home on crutches, still uncertain whether he will be able to walk properly again.
The government has given itself till the end of this month to start working on a solution, but any action it might take will come too late for people like Musa.
It’s like The Godfather, one reformed drug trafficker tells me.
The mythical gangster film centred on an organised crime dynasty locked in a transfer of power.
Communities in Scotland currently have a front row seat to a new war of violence, torture, and taunts as feuding drug lords and notorious families grapple for control of Glasgow and Edinburgh.
There have been more than a dozen brutal attacks over the past six weeks – ranging from fire bombings to attacks on children and gun violence.
A firebomb attack in Scotland
Victims left for dead, businesses up in flames
Gangsters have filmed themselves setting fire to buildings and homes connected to the associates and relatives of their bitter rivals.
The main aim, they boast, is to “exterminate” the opposition.
The taunting footage, accompanied by the song Keep On Running by The Spencer Davis Group, has been plastered over social media as part of a deliberate game of goading.
A 12-year-old boy and 72-year-old woman were left for dead when teenagers wearing balaclavas burst into a home in north Glasgow.
Garages and businesses have gone up in flames. Shots were fired at an Edinburgh house.
Signals are being sent of who wants control of Scotland’s dark criminal underworld.
A firebomb attack that saw a man throw an incendiary device through a building window
The fire attack set to the song Keep On Running by The Spencer Davis Group
What’s caused the gang war?
The former director of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, Graeme Pearson, explains how a “vacuum of leadership” is playing a part.
Last October, Glasgow-based cocaine kingpin Jamie Stevenson, known as The Iceman, was jailed after orchestrating a £100m cocaine shipment stashed in banana boxes from South America.
The mob leader was one of Britain’s most wanted, running his business like another on-screen criminal enterprise: The Sopranos.
The 59-year-old fugitive went on the run before eventually being hunted and apprehended by police while out jogging in the Netherlands.
Jamie Stevenson. Pic: Police Scotland
Pic: Crown Office
‘Old scores to settle’
But paranoia was running rife about how this notorious gangster could be brought down. Was there a grass? Was it one of their own?
It further fuelled divisions and forced new alliances to be forged across Scotland’s organised criminal networks.
It wasn’t until The Iceman case came to court that it was revealed an encrypted messaging platform, known as EncroChat, had been infiltrated by law enforcement.
It ultimately led to Stevenson pleading guilty.
Ex-senior drug enforcement officer Mr Pearson told Sky News: “It is a complex picture because you have got people who are in prison who still want to have influence outside and look after what was their business.
“On the outside you’ve got wannabes who are coming forward, and they think this is an opportunity for them, and you have got others have old scores to settle that they could not settle when crime bosses were around.”
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Graeme Pearson
Mr Pearson describes a toxic mix swirling to create outbursts of violence unfolding in Scotland.
He concluded: “All that mixes together – and the greed for the money that comes from drugs, and from the kudos that comes from being a ‘main man’, and you end up with competition, violence, and the kind of incidents we have seen over the past four to six weeks.”
New wave of violence ‘barbaric’
Glasgow man Mark Dempster is a former addict, dealer, and drug smuggler who is now an author and respected counsellor helping people quit drinking and drugs.
He describes the “jostle for power” as not a new concept among Glasgow’s high profile gangland families.
Mark Dempster
“There is always going to be someone new who wants to control the markets. It is like The Godfather. There is no difference between Scotland, Albania, or India,” he said.
Mr Dempster suggests a shift in tactics in Glasgow and Edinburgh in recent weeks, with 12-year-olds being viciously attacked in the middle of the night.
“It is barbaric. When young people, children, get pulled into the cross fire. It takes it to a different level.
“At least with the old mafiosa they had an unwritten rule that no children, no other family members. You would deal directly with the main people that were your opposition.”
Police Scotland is racing to get control of the situation, but declined to speak to Sky News about its ongoing operation.
It has been suggested 100 officers are working on this case, with “arrests imminent”.
But this is at the very sharp end of sophisticated criminal empires where the police are not feared, there are fierce vendettas and, clearly, power is up for grabs.
UK
Laws may need to be bolstered to crack down on exploitation of child ‘influencers’, senior MP suggests
Laws may need to be strengthened to crack down on the exploitation of child “influencers”, a senior Labour MP has warned.
Chi Onwurah, chair of the science, technology and innovation committee, said parts of the Online Safety Act – passed in October 2023 – may already be “obsolete or inadequate”.
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Experts have raised concerns that there is a lack of provision in industry laws for children who earn money through brand collaborations on social media when compared to child actors and models.
This has led to some children advertising in their underwear on social media, one expert has claimed.
Those working in more traditional entertainment fields are safeguarded by performance laws, which strictly govern the hours a minor can work, the money they earn and who they are accompanied by.
The Child Influencer Project, which has curated the world’s first industry guidelines for the group, has warned of a “large gap in UK law” which is not sufficiently filled by new online safety legislation.
Official portrait of Chi Onwurah.
Pic: UK Parlimeant
The group’s research found that child influencers could be exposed to as many as 20 different risks of harm, including to dignity, identity, family life, education, and their health and safety.
Ms Onwurah told Sky News there needs to be a “much clearer understanding of the nature of child influencers ‘work’ and the legal and regulatory framework around it”.
She said: “The safety and welfare of children are at the heart of the Online Safety Act and rightly so.
“However, as we know in a number of areas the act may already be obsolete or inadequate due to the lack of foresight and rigour of the last government.”
Victoria Collins, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for science, innovation and technology, agreed that regulations “need to keep pace with the times”, with child influencers on social media “protected in the same way” as child actors or models.
“Liberal Democrats would welcome steps to strengthen the Online Safety Act on this front,” she added.
‘Something has to be done’
MPs warned in 2022 that the government should “urgently address the gap in UK child labour and performance regulation that is leaving child influencers without protection”.
They asked for new laws on working hours and conditions, a mandate for the protection of the child’s earnings, a right to erasure and to bring child labour arrangements under the oversight of local authorities.
However, Dr Francis Rees, the principal investigator for the Child Influencer Project, told Sky News that even after the implementation of the Online Safety Act, “there’s still a lot wanting”.
“Something has to be done to make brands more aware of their own duty of care towards kids in this arena,” she said.
Dr Rees added that achieving performances from children on social media “can involve extremely coercive and disruptive practices”.
“We simply have to do more to protect these children who have very little say or understanding of what is really happening. Most are left without a voice and without a choice.”
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The researcher pointed to one particular instance, in which children were advertising an underwear brand on social media.
She said: “The kids in the company’s own marketing material or their own media campaigns are either pulling up the band of the underwear underneath their clothing, or they’re holding the underwear up while they’re fully clothed.
“But whenever you look at any of the sponsored content produced by families with children – mum, dad, and child are in their underwear.”
Dr Rees said it is “night and day” in terms of how companies are behaving when they have responsibility for the material, versus “the lack of responsibility once they hand it over to parents with kids”.
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