This post explores the regulatory environment around retail and online purchases of alkyl nitrites, specifically when governments evaluate them as poppers. The exploration is done per country.
As a framework, I’ve used work provided by Nicole Pepper in her contributions to the “Handbook of Substance Misuse and Addictions” that was made available in 2022.
Let’s start with the largest spending economy…
The United States:
“While legislation and regulation have attempted to ban popper use in the United States, poppers remain widely available and legal to purchase for use as cleaners, nail polish removers, and room odorizers. The Food and Drug Administration issued an advisory in 2021 due to an increase in reports of deaths and hospitalizations related to popper use to warn consumers from purchasing or using poppers for recreational use or sexual enhancement due to serious adverse health effects, including death, when inhaled or ingested (United States Food and Drug Administration 2021).”
- N. Pepper
To add a bit of further color to this, the CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Comission) regulates these products under the Federal Hazardous Substances Ace (FHSA). The text specifically related to the alkyl nitrites is found in 15 U.S.C. §§ 2057a & 2057b. Both sections say basically that same thing: It is unlawful to manufacture or distribute alkyl nitrites for “inhaling or otherwise introducing… into the human body for euphoric or physical effects”. All other purposes are lawful.
The products sometimes require different labeling and marketing considerations on a state level (and sometimes even city level). For example, California also regulates the sale of isobutyl nitrite under Proposition 65 and has a specific point of sale regulation in the California code HSC § 120870 where “Warning: These products contain alkyl nitrites (‘poppers’). Inhaling or swallowing alkyl nitrites may be harmful to your health. The use of alkyl nitrites may affect the immune system. Several studies have suggested that their use is associated with the development of Kaposi’s sarcoma (an AIDS condition)” must be displayed on the shelf. However, in large, the US seems mostly concerned with the labelling of the product and ensuring that the product is being sold for a different purpose than introducing alkyl nitrites to the human body.
The United Kingdom:
“In the United Kingdom, after much debate and advocacy by the gay community, poppers were not banned in the 2016 Psychoactive Substances Act, as they were determined not to meet the act’s definition of a “psychoactive substance” (Parliament of the United Kingdom 2015).”
- N. Pepper
The removal of poppers from the 2016 Psychoactive substances act occurred due to Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), which made reports on the topic in both 2011 and 2016. Avoiding this flirtation with an outright ban can certainly be considered a win for harm reduction groups who fear that prohibition would increase risk for users who would figure out how to consume the product anyway due to their importance in queer sex lives. However manufacturers and retailers still label the products as cleaners or odorizers to avoid additional security from consumer protection laws or, seemingly, intervention from MHRA.
ACMD has a continuing role in defining the regulation of poppers within the UK, and on May 8th, 2024, produced a follow up report that calls for regulation on purity, dose, and childproof containers. In large, the country seems accepting of the place of the product in the gay community and is interested in creating a space for them to legally exist.
France:
“Regulation of poppers in France has been reversed several times, influenced by politics, advocacy groups, and lobbying by popper manufacturers. After several overturned bans, poppers have been legal in France since 2013 (Barrangou-Poueys-Darlas et al. 2021; Victorri-Vigneau et al. 2018), with the exception of isobutyl nitrite which has been banned in the European Union since 2007 due to its classification as a carcinogen (Iverson and Reynolds 2011).”
- N. Pepper
The interesting takeaway here is that formulations for the product would be different in France than they are in the US or UK. Formulations in France can use isopropyl nitrite or amyl nitrite, which is the alkyl nitrite used in pharmaceutical products. Amyl nitrite formulations are not allowed in the US, even under different marketing claims, due to their sale as a pharmaceutical.
Canada:
Canada has some of the strongest regulations and enforcement of popper bans. Popper sales were banned in Canada in 2013; however, they are not illegal to possess. The ban on sales is enforceable by incarceration and fine. Schwartz et al. (2021) suggests that the crackdown drives use underground and inhibits regulation of products and access to accurate information about poppers. The authors note that the government’s approach lacks community involvement and input from sexual minority men who are most impacted by this policy.
- N. Pepper
It would appear that currently, Canadian politicians don’t need any help loosening up. Perhaps this won’t always be the case, as activist groups promoting the health of LGBTQ communities continue their request to end the poppers ban. Their case is similar to harm reductionist points of view globally – making the product illegal while knowing that a specific sexual minority group utilizes it for normal sexual activity is a path to a more dangerous version of the product. In addition, outright bans lead to misinformed communities that continue the cycle of shame and judgement that plagues the community, and a lesser ability to study and understand current users of the product.
China:
“Poppers are not categorized as an illicit drug and are widely available (Zhang et al. 2016). A significant amount of research on poppers and HIV has been conducted in China.”
- N. Pepper
Not a whole lot more to say here. While strict on many substances through The Narcotics Control Law of the People’s Republic of China, alkyl nitrites are not listed among the controlled substances. Seemingly, China is the world’s leader in openness and acceptance of poppers products and they are available for purchase online or at adult stores.
Japan:
“Poppers are classified as “designated substances,” a category created through 2006 legislation to address quasi-legal synthetic substances that were of concern for potential for abuse (Kikura-Hanajiri et al. 2013). Few designated substances are considered narcotics and poppers continue to be sold under the Alkyl Nitrite Inhalants (Poppers) guise of liquid aromas. Supplying designated substances is illegal; however, possession and consumption are largely unregulated.”
- N. Pepper
I’m not sure I totally agree with Nicole Pepper’s characterization here. There was an amendment to the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law in Japan in 2006 to create Designated Substances. This list includes isobutyle nitrite, isopropyl nitrite, isopentyl nitrite, tert-butl nitrite, cyclohexyl nitrite, and buytle nitrite (and yet surprisingly, no amyl nitrite). Existence on this list means that manufacture, import, sale, display, and possession are generally prohibited except for scientific purposes.
Taking it a step further, they have a penchant for publicly humiliating people who possess poppers. In this case, they thought sending the police to confiscate a 50-year-old adult’s bottle of Rush and detailing the affair in the press was appropriate. Only time will tell how things will change, as politicians recently decided that it was no longer cool to sleep with a 13-year-old. Who knows what they’ll change next?
Australia:
“Influenced by advocacy from the HIV and gay communities, in 2020, Australia allowed the over-the-counter sale of amyl nitrite in pharmacies; other alkyl nitrites were reclassified as legal with prescription. Currently, however, there are no over-the-counter products available on the market due to lengthy approval processes (Vaccher et al. 2020). While advocacy and harm reduction groups praised the decriminalization of popper use, others raised concern that the policy effectively makes nitrite inhalants extremely difficult to obtain.”
- N. Pepper
While seemingly responding to public pressure and probably getting called homophobic a lot, poppers are now pharmaceuticals in Australia. The lack of a single approved product however seems to be the very frequent downside of regulation of this type – so now there is only a black market. Harm reduction groups have good reason to fear over regulation spreading to other markets where governments don’t quite know what to do with the products and, one could argue, end up doing more harm than good.
I’ll continue to add to this entry as time allows. The highly varied regulatory landscape seems to be in a state of continuous adaption to an age where homophobia is frowned upon in developed nations.
This post is brought to you by Unspillables Solvent Cleaners. The brand, while obviously unaffiliated with poppers products and this blog, has a side interest in social studies on the LGBTQ community.
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