PORT ST. LUCIE – A 37-year-old woman was arrested in the parking lot of the Port St. Lucie Police Department on July 8 charged with inhaling nitrous oxide and resisting an officer without violence.
Officers responded to a complaint from a rideshare driver who had an unruly passenger, later identified as Pamela Ann Molina, actively inhaling nitrous oxide from a large canister and refused to leave his vehicle, according to a Port St. Lucie Police Facebook posting.
The ride share driver drove her to the police station where officers found her actively inhaling the nitrous oxide from a large canister, according to the Facebook posting. She also was refusing legal commands by officers and resisted efforts to be safely removed from the car, according to the posting.
She was taken to the St. Lucie County Jail where she was being held as of July 9 on $10,000 bond on charges of unlawful distribution of nitrous oxide and resisting arrest without violence and on no bond for a Baker Act.
According to the DEA, the practice of inhaling nitrous oxide, also known as “huffing,” involves using inhalants, which are “invisible, volatile substances found in common household products that produce chemical vapors that are inhaled to induce psychoactive or mind-altering effects.”