The home secretary has sought to clarify the legal status of poppers, in a move campaigners said highlighted “the absurdity of current drug legislation”.
Alkyl nitrite preparations, widely known as poppers, have resided in a legal grey area after being given a last-minute reprieve from inclusion in a ban on formerly legal highs in 2016, following an outcry from gay people, led by former Tory minister Crispin Blunt.
In a letter to the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD),
Priti Patel wrote that the group had said poppers did not fall within the scope of the Psychoactive Substances Act because they did not have a direct effect on the central nervous system.
“However, a Court of Appeal judgment in 2018 confirmed that substances which have only an indirect psychoactive effect can still be captured by the 2016 Act,” she said.
“As a consequence the lawfulness of the supply of poppers is uncertain. I am minded to remove this uncertainty by explicitly exempting poppers from the 2016 Act. I would seek the ACMD’s advice on an exemption."
