The Government has launched a consultation on legitimate uses and appropriate controls of Nitrous Oxide to understand "the full range of legitimate uses of nitrous oxide" and "ensure that we minimise the burdens placed on those who seek to use and handle nitrous oxide for legitimate purposes."

The consultation sets out three proposed approaches to facilitate legitimate use, which are:

1. Introduce a licensing requirement for the import, export, possession, production, or supply of nitrous oxide where this is for a legitimate purpose.
2. Exempt from licensing requirements the import, export, possession, production, and supply of nitrous oxide where this is for legitimate purposes. This would mean no licensing requirements for legitimate purposes.
3. Introduce licensing requirements for the import, export, production, and supply of nitrous oxide and provide an exemption for the possession of nitrous oxide where this is for a legitimate purpose.

The consultation follows a previous announcement by the Government to control Nitrous Oxide as a Class C drug under the 1971 Act.  This consultation will be used by the government to understand the range and scale of legitimate uses of nitrous oxide to enable the design of appropriate permissions in the law to allow its use for legitimate purposes once it is controlled under Class C of the 1971 Act.