Doncaster campaigner's anger after dumped laughing gas capsule causes £154 car tyre puncture

A Doncaster clean-up campaigner has blasted laughing gas users after a discarded capsule punctured her husband’s tyre.
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Market trader Mark Jackson discovered one of the small metal canisters wedged in the tyre of his Ford Transit van after returning to his vehicle following work in Doncaster town centre earlier this week.

Now his wife has hit out at users – and says the drug – also known as ‘hippy crack’ is becoming a scourge in Doncaster and that she regularly picks up dozens of the capsules in her local park.

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Clarissa Jackson, who volunteers in cleaning up her home village of Warmsworth, said: “Not only is it dangerous for the young people who are taking it, it is now also causing damage to vehicles too.

Clarissa Jackson has hit out at users of laughing gas after her husband's van tyre was punctured by one of the canisters.Clarissa Jackson has hit out at users of laughing gas after her husband's van tyre was punctured by one of the canisters.
Clarissa Jackson has hit out at users of laughing gas after her husband's van tyre was punctured by one of the canisters.

"We need to stop it because its getting out of hand.”

Mrs Jackson says that her husband, a fishmonger, found the canister had deflated his tyre when he returned to his vehicle in the Markets Car Park.

The repair, at a local garage, cost him £154 – and he was left stunned when the mechanic showed him what had caused the puncture.

Mrs Jackson, who helps volunteer to keep Warmsworth’s Quarry Park – known locally as the Flower Park – tidy, says she can find as many as 50 or so of the discarded containers in the park each week.

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“I clean up three times a week and each time I can find 15-20 of them,” she said.

She added: “It is a really big concern of mine at just how much damage this drug can cause, not just to children but now to vehicles too.”

Officially known as nitrous oxide, the drug is poured into a balloon and then inhaled.

The drug can cause analgesia, depersonalisation, derealisation, dizziness, euphoria, and some sound distortion and in some cases, it may cause slight hallucinations and have a mild aphrodisiac effect.

Research has also found that it increases suggestibility and imagination.

It has been used as recreational drug since at least 1799 but usage has increased in recent years.