Nitrous oxide fight taken from Shropshire to Australia

Councillor Thomas Janke spoke about his campaign on the ABC Adelaide radio station live from Newport over the weekend.

Councillor Janke has run the campaign against laughing gas for about six months, beginning his effort after a number of capsules used to administer the gas were found around the town.

This month he said that the numbers had successfully dropped thanks to efforts from police and the community.

And on Sunday he shared his success story to listeners Down Under, an experience he described as "surreal".

He was speaking with host Spence Denny.

Mr Denny said: "The canisters are used for whipped cream. Nitrous Oxide can be used in dental surgery and birthing suites. It can be used to boost power in engines.

"The other use is that young people are inhaling it for a high.

"An earlier guest said it was not unusual to find 150 canisters, and there was a similar situation in Shropshire, in the UK, in a place called Newport."

Councillor Janke said: "We started to notice these small silver canisters were being found in larger amounts each time we did a litter pick

"As a concerned local councillor I discovered this was a growing problem across the borough at large. Working with police we decided to tackle it head on to educate about the dangers, especially when having it with alcohol."

He said that the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 – which helped control the sale of nitrous oxide – did not go far enough.

Councillor Janke said: "Through the local media and working with police, we were able to get an increased patrol on the parks. We also worked with schools.

"Once the message got out there we've barely seen a canister.

"One of the issues we face is that we can't prove young people are not going to use the canisters for whipped cream. The act doesn't go far enough, because people are able to buy them in store or online. It's easy to know what young people are going to use it for, but no way of knowing for sure."