NYPost | By Zach Williams | February 24, 2023
New legislation in Albany would ban retailers like Amazon from selling sodium nitrite, a common meat preservative linked to youth suicides across the country.
“It’s basically like the suicide poison of choice,” state Sen. Andrew Gounardes (D-Brooklyn) told The Post Friday.
“There are whole websites – whole corners of the dark web, where people are like: ‘Here’s how you do it. Here’s how you take your life. You have to just go online and order x amount of sodium nitrite, mix it with water and drink it.'”
The bill Gounardes plans to officially introduce Monday would bar both online retailers and brick-and-mortar stores from selling the salt-like substance “without proof of its intended use for institutional or scientific purposes.”
Only people 21 years old and up would be able to purchase sodium nitrite under the bill, which also establishes a right for individuals to sue violators of the ban.