How we supply nitrous oxide, and who we will not supply

The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) Order 2023 made nitrous oxide a Class C controlled drug with effect from 8 November 2023. It sits in Schedule 5 to the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001.

Regulation 4C(3) permits supply except where the supplier “knows, or is reckless as to whether, it is likely to be wrongfully inhaled by a person”. Regulation 4C(5) defines wrongful inhalation as any inhalation other than for medical or dental purposes, or of gas released into the atmosphere. Using nitrous oxide as a propellant to aerate cream is not wrongful inhalation, so supplying a caterer for that purpose remains entirely lawful.

The offence is about the supplier’s state of mind. Supplying a Class C drug carries up to 14 years’ imprisonment. Everything below exists so that we are never reckless about where our stock ends up.

There is no guest checkout for this category and no consumer route to it. You must hold an approved trade account, and approval for chargers is a separate decision from ordinary trade approval.

Every food business in the UK must register with its local authority under Article 6(2) of assimilated Regulation (EC) 852/2004. We match your application to your entry on the Food Standards Agency register, record the establishment ID, the authority you are registered with and your hygiene rating on the day, and keep that snapshot on file.

Controlled goods go to trading premises we have confirmed are yours. Never to a home address, never to a locker, PO box or parcel shop, never left in a safe place, and never to a third-party address at short notice.

Delivery is signed for by a named person. That name goes into the register alongside the invoice number and the consignment reference.

Each account carries a rolling 30-day limit set against the size of kitchen you told us you run. You can ask us to raise it, and we often will — but that is a conversation with a person, not a form.

Large single orders are held for a named member of staff to release before they are picked. Volumes that are within your limit but out of proportion to your business get looked at by hand as well.

Tier 1 is 8g chargers. The standard professional format, and what most kitchens want. Approval follows the checks above.

Tier 2 is large disposable cylinders — 580g and 615g. These are lawful: there is no size-specific prohibition in the legislation, and a cylinder is the same food-grade gas as a charger under the same exemption. But the British Compressed Gas Association has said publicly that canisters of around 600ml have no legitimate UK use, and we are not going to pretend we have not read that. So we supply them, and we make you earn them.

To be approved for cylinders, an account must additionally:

• already be trading with us on chargers, for at least 30 days;
• have had a site visit — we come to your kitchen, see the siphons in use and see where the stock will be locked away. No visit, no cylinders;
• have that visit renewed at least every 365 days;
• be a kitchen rather than a shop counter — the eligible business types are tighter for this tier;
• have no refused orders on the account in the previous 90 days;
• be approved a second time, by a director, in writing.

Cylinder volumes are small, and every single cylinder order is released by a named person before it is picked, however routine it looks. Both tiers draw on one shared budget measured in grams of gas, so an account cannot take a full charger allowance on top of a full cylinder allowance.

If you find that tiresome, we understand. It is the reason we are able to sell them at all.

We do not stock flavoured nitrous oxide, balloon kits or direct-inhalation nozzles at any volume: they are inhalation equipment, not catering equipment. Cylinders above one litre are outside the limited-quantity transport regime and we do not carry them either.

• flavoured nitrous oxide
• balloon kit
• dispensing nozzle for direct inhalation
• cylinder above 1 litre water capacity (2kg, 3.3kg)

The distinction we draw is between a larger quantity of gas, which a busy dessert section can genuinely justify, and equipment whose only purpose is to get that gas into a person. We will sell you the first and never the second. Cylinders above one litre are also outside the limited-quantity transport regime, which is a different operation from ours.

Order notes are screened. A customer who indicates the goods are for inhalation has told us something we cannot un-know, and the order is refused. So is any order where the circumstances do not add up.

Every refusal is logged with the reason and kept. Where we think an offence is being committed we will report it to Avon and Somerset Police and to Bristol City Council Trading Standards, and we will co-operate fully.

Regulations 24 and 26 of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 require records of every quantity of nitrous oxide obtained and supplied. We keep both sides: supplier, invoice, batch and quantity in; customer, address, invoice, batch, quantity and recipient out.

Records are retained for 2 years and produced on demand to a constable or an authorised officer. Stock is reconciled against the register, because a register that does not balance is how diversion shows up.

Every controlled account is reviewed at least every 180 days. If your FSA registration lapses, your premises change, your ordering pattern shifts, or we cannot reach you, the category closes until we have spoken.

Our own staff are trained on this policy before they can pick a controlled order, and retrained annually. Approving an account, raising a limit and verifying an address are restricted to directors — the people who pack the boxes cannot widen the gate.

Chargers are UN 2037 receptacles, small, containing gas, carried as an ADR limited quantity. They are correctly marked and packed, and they never travel with a carrier whose terms prohibit compressed gas — which is most standard parcel networks.

Inside Bristol they go on our own van. Elsewhere they go with a carrier contracted for limited-quantity dangerous goods.