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Is it illegal for those under 21 to buy whipped cream sprays in New York?

2022-09-03T22:16:59.977Z


An internet hoax forces to clarify the intention of a law that prevents the sale to this group of nitrogen cartridges, which have a narcotic effect if inhaled


College students prepare cakes with whipped cream for a party in Hamtramck, Michigan, in 2017.Carlos Osorio (AP)

This story brings together misinformation, goblins from social networks (the old printing press goblins, in an updated version), haute cuisine and a certain dose of hysteria as ingredients.

It affects young people under the age of 21 in the State of New York, cooks who are fond of experimentation in the kitchen and a Democratic representative in the New York Senate, promoter of a law that since last year prohibits the sale of nitrogen cartridges for culinary siphons at that age range.

But the mixture of all the ingredients must have made someone indigestible, who knows if due to a quick reading or perhaps due to an excess of nitrogen in the blood, and the prohibition of the sale of chargers to prevent the nitrous oxide (N2O) they contain can be inhaled as a narcotic, has become a crazy trend these days on Twitter.

And from trend to presumed news: those under the age of 21 are prohibited from buying whipped cream in New York State.

That's how final, and amazing, was the headline, repeated insistently and taking the hoax as good.

Confusing the part with the whole, that lifelong figure of speech called synecdoche, has forced the very senator who promoted the legislation (New York State Law S.2819A, approved by the Legislative Assembly in 2021) to intervene.

With a message on Twitter, where else, identical to the one posted on his website, Senator Joe Addabbo stepped in clarifying that one thing is whipped cream and quite another, the gas in the cartridge that allows gourmets to experiment with textures and siphon volumes at the ready and that, inhaled, has a stimulating stupefying effect.

Serpent of (late) summer or not, media as serious as the

New York Times or the

Associated Press

news agency

entered the non-news rag, to dismantle the hoax and clarify the ban.

“Some have interpreted a law aimed at curbing the inhalation of nitrous oxide by teenagers as an outright ban on whipped cream sprays,” the newspaper noted sensibly on Wednesday.

To justify such strange legislation, which came into force in November, Democrat Addabbo explained that in his district, Queens, empty chargers or cartridges abounded among the street garbage.

“They are lying around in many areas of my district and many other communities in [New York] State and people were calling my office directly to ask what could be done.

Since the law came into force, there have been many fewer cartridges in my district, ”he explains to settle the controversial issue.

Addabbo, whose office has not responded to this newspaper's request for statements, stresses in the statement the danger of inhaling N2O and emphasizes the need to prevent its use by young people.

Addabbo's clarification, which described the controversy as a "totally erroneous interpretation of the law", and the verification of the means is a relief to face the final stretch of summer: adults and children will be able to consume whipped cream at will, in bulk.

There will be no need to show the identity card, as indicated by the pseudo-information portals that spread the error: an article that stated so was retweeted more than 5,000 times in hours.

The misstep of network users, rushed media and business owners who denounced the supposed ban adds another notch to the growing discredit in the handling of information: another fake news, one more.

But the truth is that

recreational use

of nitrous oxide, commonly called laughing gas, causes a euphoric effect and serious health risks, and this is what the legislation tries to prevent, in a country hit by the opioid crisis and in which any drug makes a fortune .

It was the language in the law describing the cartridges as "whipped cream magazines" that caused widespread confusion online and in stores.

From the episode, or soap opera if you prefer, several conclusions can be drawn, not exactly reassuring.

One, the fact that news (and

non-news

as well) are resurrected long after they are produced, as if they had a life of their own.

Two, that the summer snakes (irrelevant or surprising news to fill the informative dead calm of the station) are no longer a monopoly of the press and have found a limitless field on the internet.

And three, that the convoluted American bureaucracy - laugh the Soviet bureaucracy - sometimes turns out to be at least original.

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Source: elparis

All life articles on 2022-09-03

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