{"id":185279,"date":"2026-03-10T06:03:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T06:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/185279\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T06:03:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T06:03:08","slug":"florida-bill-restricting-sales-of-nitrous-oxide-passes-legislature-heads-to-governor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/185279\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida bill restricting sales of nitrous oxide passes Legislature, heads to governor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A bill (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flsenate.gov\/Session\/Bill\/2026\/432\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">SB 432<\/a>) that would prohibit the over-the-counter sales of nitrous oxide in Florida is on its way to the governor\u2019s desk.<\/p>\n<p>Nitrous oxide, also known as \u201claughing gas\u201d and colloquially as \u201cwhippits&#8221; or &#8220;Whip-Its,\u201d is used at the dentists\u2019 offices but can be sold at gas stations and smoke shops in canisters.<\/p>\n<p>Inhaling nitrous oxide can cause a euphoric effect, but excess use can cause brain damage and suffocation from prolonged or continuous oxygen deprivation.<\/p>\n<p>The bill, which passed the Senate last week, passed through the House unanimously.<\/p>\n<p>If signed into law, the ban would not apply to designated grocery stores and supermarkets licensed by the Florida Department of Agriculture, but it would apply to convenience stores.<\/p>\n<p>It would also not prohibit the sale of a finished food product in which nitrous oxide is used solely as a propellant, like a whipped cream can.<\/p>\n<p>The bill is also known as \u201cMeg\u2019s Law,\u201d after Meg Caldwell, a 29-year-old Central Florida resident whose relatives say died behind a smoke shop after she consumed nitrous oxide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A bill (SB 432) that would prohibit the over-the-counter sales of nitrous oxide in Florida is on its&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-185279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}