More On: whipped cream
New York stores are starting to check IDs for people who want to buy whipped cream
A year ago, the state passed a law that said no one under 21 could buy whipped cream canisters.
The law was passed last year because people were worried that more and more teens were getting high by breathing in the nitrous oxide that was used as a propellant in the canisters. This was reported by the Albany Times Union.
If you sell whipped cream canisters to someone under 21 for the first time, you will be fined $250. If you do it again, you could be fined up to $500.
The Alcohol and Drug Foundation says that nitrous oxide, also known as "laughing gas," is a dissociative anesthetic that can be inhaled by letting go of nitrous gas cartridges called "whippets." The drug can make you feel happy for a short time, but it can also make you lose your blood pressure, pass out, have a heart attack, or die quickly. Memory loss and psychosis are two long-term effects that could happen.
Joseph Addabbo, a Democrat and state senator, wrote the bill that makes it illegal to sell whipped cream canisters to teenagers. He said he supported the bill after learning that nitrous oxide was hurting his district.
When the law was passed last fall, Addabbo said, "This new law is an important step toward solving a big problem in many neighborhoods in my district." "The need to limit access to and sales of whippets became clear to me when I started getting complaints from residents about empty canisters on the streets. Used whippets piling up in our towns are not only unsightly, but they also show that people are abusing nitrous oxide in a big way.
The president of the New York Association of Convenience Stores, Kent Sopris, told the Times Union that he told members of his group to follow the law when he found out about it two months ago. He said that this was likely because of a problem with how the law was tracked.
He said, "I think there's some way of reporting that didn't work the way it was supposed to." "We were keeping an eye on the bill last year, and when I looked at the file for tracking bills, there was no sign that it had been signed."
A representative for Price Chopper, a grocery store chain based in Schenectady, told the Albany newspaper that as of September 1, whipped cream canisters would be marked as "age-restricted" at self-checkouts. Other food stores have done the same things.
More than 107,000 Americans died of drug overdoses last year, which is the most ever and a big jump from 2020, when only 93,655 Americans died.
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