Extract from La Voix du Nord, September 12, 2023
"Strawberry, coconut, blueberry flavors? You're spoilt for choice, not only for taste but also for packaging. You can buy whole pallets if you feel like it." In just two clicks, Dr Guillaume Grzych, senior lecturer at the University of Lille, takes a tour of a virtual grocery store where "tanks" and other carboys have replaced individual nitrous oxide capsules. "You can get the equivalent of 400 to 600 times an individual dose. In fact, fewer and fewer capsules are being found in the wild. Which could give the wrong impression that the phenomenon has disappeared...".
Une hallucination – La consommation de « proto » explose en France sans réelle prise de conscience de la part des pouvoirs publics. « Ce site vous indique même comment vous faire de l’argent en vendant ce produit qui n’est pas classé comme stupéfiant » mais dont la consommation n’est pas sans dangers < https://www.lavoixdunord.fr/1280372/article/2023-01- 18/protoxyde-d-azote-le-nombre-de-cas-graves-multiplie-par-trois-en- 2021>.
Irreversible syndromes - "Nearly 300 people, most of them young, were seen in the emergency departments of the CHU in Lille, Roubaix or Saint-Philibert in 2022 following intoxication." Among them were a dozen thrombotic conditions, syndromes comparable and sometimes irreversible to those of multiple sclerosis, serious neurological damage, burns, some of which were surprising... " By the cold and on the thighs, where the cylinder is placed. The consumer, who is in a second state, is unaware of what is happening to him.
Just the tip of the iceberg - "We also greatly underestimate the number of traffic accidents caused by this phenomenon". A recent case heard by the Lille court illustrates the point. A 23-year-old motorist had mobilized five police crews in a car chase. He was driving with a suspended license, high on nitrous oxide. Four tanks! "He inhaled it all during the chase. He was foaming at the mouth," says his lawyer.
Future collaboration with Road Safety - "We plan to set up a collaboration with Road Safety in 2024 and work on developing screening tools," Guillaume Grzych continues. "In the Netherlands, the number of road accidents attributed to nitrous oxide rose from 2,600 in 2019 to 4,800 in 2021."
France is no exception to the trend, even if the indications are indirect: "45% of inmates surveyed admit to having taken the product", and 15% to 20% of the French population are said to have indulged in it at least once. "This figure rises to 39% in the UK! The "proto", a health and road safety scourge, is now mobilizing more and more medical channels. But no prevention campaign worthy of the name can stand up to the "enormous marketing carried out on social networks... It's the fashionable product".
Lilleers head a European working group - Setting up a genuine care pathway for patients; training and informing healthcare professionals about symptoms and treatment methods; continuing research efforts... These are the medical developments underway when it comes to nitrous oxide poisoning, the long-term effects of which are not yet known. With limited resources but the support of the Agence régionale de santé (ARS), Lille's nitrous oxide network, based at the Lille University Hospital's biology and pathology center, has earned its stripes. "It spread throughout the region, then nationally, where we organized ourselves into disciplines and working groups", continues Guillaume Grzych, also a medical biologist.
Obsolete - The publication of numerous scientific articles has established the team's reputation, to the point where the man from Lille now heads a European working group, one of whose priorities is to harmonize recommendations. A real challenge, since the 300 people intoxicated in 2022 and treated by various emergency services are only the tip of the iceberg... Guillaume Grzych points out that, for the moment, "the only legal framework is the ban on sales to minors". That the decree planned for 2024 seems at the very least vague and belated. "It targets consumption patterns of two years ago. Now, we've moved from capsules to tanks." Faced with nitrous oxide, we need to bring out the heavy artillery.
An information day will be held on November 30, 2023 at the Institut Gernez-Rieux.
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