JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Starting Thursday, smoke shops, gas stations and other retailers can no longer sell nitrous oxide.<\/p>\n
The products go by many names like Galaxy Gas or Nitro Whip, but they\u2019re all selling the same thing: Nitrous oxide – a gas people may know from the dentist\u2019s office as laughing gas.<\/p>\n
But Mike McCormick with Florida Poison Control argued nitrous oxide is no laughing matter.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s sort of like you\u2019re strangling yourself from the inside. This makes it so your body can\u2019t absorb oxygen correctly,\u201d said McCormick.<\/p>\n
Nitrous oxide products have been sold for years, often in the form of mini gas canisters, and are inhaled by users to get high.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re often called \u201cwhippets\u201d by recreational users and their use among teens and young adults has become a growing concern.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t have big giant warnings on them. I think people get the misconception that because they\u2019re sold over the counter they must be safe,\u201d said McCormick. <\/p>\n
Florida doesn\u2019t specifically track deaths caused by nitrous oxide, but national stats collected by the Journal of the American Medical Association<\/a> found deaths have steadily climbed from just 23 in 2010 to 156 in 2023.<\/p>\n A Central Florida 29-year-old, Meg Caldwell, lost her life due to nitrous oxide abuse in 2024, and her death became a catalyst for change.<\/p>\n This year, Florida lawmakers passed Meg\u2019s Law<\/a>, which outlaws the sale of nitrous oxide by smoke shops, gas stations and other retailers. It makes violations a 3rd-degree felony.<\/p>\n McCormick argued it\u2019s a good first step, but noted nitrous oxide is only one of several inhalants commonly abused and easily available on store shelves.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat it does do is restrict some of the very easy access. So, it is going to make it more difficult for people who want to use this as an illicit substance and that\u2019s what they\u2019re essentially doing,\u201d said McCormick.<\/p>\n McCormick recommended parents talk to their children, especially those around college age, about the risks associated with inhalant abuse.<\/p>\n He urged parents to emphasize, just because you can buy something legally in a store, doesn\u2019t make it safe.<\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Starting Thursday, smoke shops, gas stations and other retailers can no longer sell nitrous oxide.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[344,347,28,348,116,351,118,117,349,350,346,345],"class_list":["post-416189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action-news-jax","tag-cbs47","tag-florida","tag-fox30","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-fl","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-northeast-florida","tag-southeast-georgia","tag-wfox","tag-wjax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416189","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=416189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}