Notting Hill Carnival: Don't take laughing gas, ambulance chiefs warn

Revellers attending the Notting Hill Carnival were today warned about the dangers of taking “hippy crack” and other so-called legal highs.

The London Ambulance Service issued the alert after use of the increasingly fashionable stimulants last year resulted in numerous people requiring emergency treatment.

Paul Gibson, LAS tactical commander for the carnival, said: “Legal highs posed a big problem for us at last year’s carnival. We treated many people who presented symptoms having taken legal highs. These included seizures, falls and people suffering injuries as a result of assaults.

“Legal highs can be extremely dangerous. We urge people to think twice before taking them and to be aware of the potentially harmful side effects.”

Nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, is known as hippy crack and gives users a short-lived sense of euphoria and dizziness. It deprives the brain of oxygen and has been linked by coroners to 17 deaths in the UK between 2006 and 2012. It is illegal to supply the gas to under-18s.

Legal highs tend to mimic illegal drugs such as cocaine and cannabis but can carry serious health risks because they often contain substances not intended for human consumption. The LAS and St John Ambulance will operate 10 treatment centres on Sunday and Monday. Paramedics with defibrillators and oxygen will patrol on foot.

Police were this week conducting four days of raids in an attempt to disrupt the supply of drugs to the carnival and to take gang members off the streets.

Operation Vitality, involving 1,000 officers, began on Tuesday with the arrests of 18 people.

In Hammersmith and Fulham and Kensington and Chelsea, eight addresses linked to a Somali gang were raided with arrests linked to drugs and weapons.