site.btaLawmakers Decline to Designate Laughing Gas as Controlled Substance

Parliament said no on Wednesday to a plan to mandate the Council of Ministers to add nitrous oxide (laughing gas) to the controlled substances list. The proposal was put forward by Korneliya Ninova from BSP for Bulgaria and a group of MPs.

The proposal was re-voted and rejected a second time. The argument was that laughing gas is not a drug, and therefore cannot be put on the controlled substances lists.

Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) MP Ivaylo Mitkovski said that a substance cannot be put on a list if it fails to satisfy the criteria for inclusion on that list.

Alexander Simidchiev (CC-DB) said there are two possible solutions: one is to use the Public Health Act to ban the sale of laughing gas, the other is to classify laughing gas as a narcotic.

Kostadin Angelov (GERB-UDF) argued that the sale of laughing gas to under-18 individuals has long been banned but that has not solved the problem with its use among young people. He also said that no country has designated laughing gas as a narcotic.

Korneliya Ninova (BSP for Bulgaria) agreed with that, saying that thousands of children use laughing gas despite the ban. "Now we are going to ban its sale to all but do you think it will stop them?" she said adding that adding laughing gas to the list of narcotic substances is the only think that can address the situation. 

Daniel Petrov of Vazrazhdane commented that the problem with the use of laughing gas won't be resolved "until we add this thing to the list of narcotic substances". He also called for improving control on compliance.