Police have vowed to continue arresting people for supplying laughing gas despite the collapse of the first contested court cases under a new law enabled by the Psychoactive Substances Act. The Act contains an exemption for “medicinal products”, which was taken by the two courts to apply to laughing gas. Professor Rudi Fortson QC, who specialises in drug law and gave evidence to a parliamentary inquiry into new psychoactive substances, said it would be “absurd” to label all nitrous oxide a medicinal product. “Maybe the answer is for Parliament to make some adjustment, or further guidelines to be issued by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), but what constitutes a medical product is a question for the courts to answer as and when the issue arises.” Read the full article.