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Poppers in a Carrefour? Although this announcement may make you smile, it is nevertheless reality. A young man recently filmed the famous colorful bottles on the supermarket shelves.
It’s a video that created a buzz. On Twitter, an Internet user posted a video showing bottles of Poppers… on the shelves of a Carrefour. A drug, usually sold in stores with a marketing license.
A bottle of Poppers for less than 5 euros in a supermarket?
On the video dating from March 24, 2024 – viewed nearly three million times and shared nearly 500 times in three days on Twitter – we can see the young man’s hand approaching the famous bottles.
Scandalized by the presence of this product in a family supermarket (a Carrefour City in Clermont-Ferrand) but also by its price (less than 5 euros), he films himself and writes in the caption of the video:No, but look at what the intersection next to me was selling and at WHAT PRICE!?“.
“When I saw that, among the candies, I told myself that it wasn’t possible“, reveals Ioan, author of the video. “I was surprised to find them there because usually, you find this type of product in tobacco shops or in sex shops where identity checks [pour vérifier la majorité] are strict. And then, I was also very surprised by the price. Elsewhere, it’s at least four to five times more expensive.”. The young man also notes that there were only two bottles left in this presentation box which could contain some.thirty“.
Faced with this video, comments from Internet users were quick to flood in. Some wonder about the price of the bottle, but most find the presence of such a product in a supermarket incomprehensible. And for good reason: if the sale of Poppers is indeed authorized in France (poppers is defined as a psychoactive substance and not a narcotic), it nonetheless remains regulated. Minors are not allowed to purchase them and only certain specialized stores can sell said bottles.
No sales ban since 2013
The young man also assures our colleagues of 20 minutes that it is “the first time” that he sees poppers on the shelves of a “Carrefour City”. And it is precisely on this last point that the defense of the food giant is based.
“Our independent retail partners (Carrefour City or Express for example) have (…) the right to sell them freely, except to minors“, specified the Carrefour press service.
According to’French Office for Drugs and Addictive Tendencies (OFDT), a decree of June 29, 2011 had prohibited the sale and transfer to the public of poppers due to their significant toxicity and their psychoactive effects. But on June 3, 2013, the Council of State canceled this 2011 decree: the manufacturing and marketing of these poppers (based on amyl and propyl nitrites) are therefore no longer subject to the ban. .
A product far from harmless for health
“Poppers” are very volatile liquid preparations, containing nitrites, packaged in bottles and intended to be inhaled. Appearing at the end of the 1970s, their use today affects a young population who use them for recreational purposes.
According to the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM), “Consumption of nitrites causes cerebral, peripheral and genital vasodilation in particular. These derivatives also induce the transformation of hemoglobin into methemoglobin unsuitable for the transport of oxygen in the blood, causing cyanosis (an abnormal bluish discoloration of the skin) and hypoxia.
Other effects are also reported such as sensations of heat, tachycardia, headache, nausea, vomiting, hypotension, malaise and cardiovascular collapse which can lead to death. Finally, eye damage has also been described..
Between 1999 and March 2011, 940 cases of exposure to “poppers” including 817 symptomatic cases were collected in France: 146 were serious (high methemoglobinemia, cyanosis, coma, respiratory and cardiac problems) including 6 deaths.