This is one of the first arrests for consumption of nitrous oxide while driving.
During the night of this Saturday to this Sunday, around 3:30 am, the police noticed a Renault Captur which swerved on the avenue des Champs-Elysées (Paris, 8th arrondissement).
It stops and restarts unexpectedly, without taking into account the safety distances.
The officials rise to his height.
The driver, with his friends in the passenger compartment, did not notice the presence of the silkscreened vehicle.
He holds a balloon in his hand and brings it to his mouth to inhale and exhale several times.
Exactly the method for inhaling nitrous oxide.
Used in the kitchen in whipped cream siphons or in hospitals during benign operations to put the patient to sleep, its use is diverted for recreational purposes.
And since June 1, 2021, the Public Health Code has prohibited the sale and transfer to minors, under penalty of a tort fine of 3,750 euros fine for the seller.
"I do not understand this decision", indignant the elected
The driver ends up noticing the police and drops the balloon which falls at his feet. But during the control, this man without history immediately recognizes that he was consuming laughing gas. The agents also seize the canister of medical nitrous oxide, bearing the logo of a sales site on the social network Snapchat. Consulting the vehicle file tells the police that he is not allowed to drive. The 20-year-old driver was therefore taken into police custody, before being released a few hours later.
However, his dangerous driving under laughing gas was not considered for prosecution.
"The consumption by an adult of this substance in common use for its psychoactive effects is not repressed by law", we remind the Paris prosecutor's office, thus justifying the "classification 21".
This means a classification without follow-up for insufficiently characterized infringement.
"I do not know what more is needed for the offense to be characterized and I do not understand this decision", indignant Jeanne d'Hauteserre, the mayor (LR) of the very posh VIIIe arrondissement.
For more than a year now, at the request of residents "who complain regularly", she has entered into a crusade against the consumption of nitrous oxide.
"We find hundreds of capsules on the ground every morning, this causes dangerous behavior," she criticizes, asking the police to crack down for several weeks, "because the police headquarters has published an order prohibiting its consumption. "But a prefectural decree only results in a fine, which in this case was less important judicially than driving a vehicle supposed to be immobilized, which undoubtedly explains this decision ...