Britain’s laughing gas problem and the sober truth about decriminalising drugs

The tragic case of student Ellen Mercer – who inhaled two to three ‘big bottles’ of nitrous oxide gas each day – demonstrates our failed approach to dealing with addiction, writes Ian Hamilton

Ellen Mercer died in February last year (Supplied)

Yet another death linked to laughing gas – this time, the tragic case of Ellen Mercer, 24, who inhaled two to three “big bottles” of nitrous oxide gas each day – demonstrates our failed approach to drugs.

Ellen died in February last year, although it wasn’t until November 2023 that the home secretary took the decision to classify nitrous oxide as a class C drug under the 1971 misuse of drugs act. It is impossible to know whether these tougher controls for laughing gas would have saved Ellen’s life. However, it was already illegal to inhale nitrous oxide for anything other than medical or dental purposes under existing law.

Nitrous oxide has been growing in popularity in recent years – you only need look at the discarded silver bullet-shaped containers in our streets as evidence of how widespread it has become. As its appeal has grown, so too have the size of the cannisters. To give you context as to just how large these “big bottles” may have been: it looks likely Ellen had been using several 600g cannisters a day at the time of her death.