Are poppers legal in Germany?

The answer to this question can be answered with yes and no, respectively. with “it depends”. We have been dealing with the legal situation of poppers in Europe, Germany and Switzerland since 2014 and have already followed a number of criminal and administrative proceedings on this subject.

The possession and consumption of poppers is permitted in Germany. In Germany too, poppers are not subject to the Narcotics Act, mainly because of the lack of dependency (so poppers are not drugs).

In Germany, poppers is only a prescription drug, for which the doctor would have to issue a prescription. However, since the product is no longer used in medicine, there is no longer a market for it. In Switzerland, where Oxymoron AG (operator of this website) is based, the Swiss regulatory and supervisory authority for medicines (Swissmedic) has confirmed that poppers do not fall under the Medicines Act because the medical purpose is missing.

In Switzerland, poppers fall under the likewise very strict and complicated Chemicals Act ChemG. The possession and “consumption” of poppers is also permitted in Switzerland. The sale of poppers in Switzerland is only permitted under very specific conditions. This now means that when you buy poppers on our website, you are buying a product that falls under Swiss chemicals legislation, as we are based in Switzerland.

In Germany we continue to sell our poppers under the intended use “leather cleaner”. Our leather cleaners are duly registered and approved as chemicals in the European Chemicals Register. It is then the responsibility of every consumer how often he cleans his harness or sling with our product or how often he pulls on the cleaner. We do not sell the bottles in Germany explicitly for the purpose of human consumption and there are relatively few objections to the sale of leather cleaners if the various regulations are complied with.

The ingredients of poppers are mostly nitrites (alkyl esters of nitrous acid). There is a whole range of nitrites and this is exactly where it differs, among other things, which nitrites may be sold as poppers in Switzerland and which not.

There are nitrites which are toxic to aspiration and can be fatal if accidentally swallowed. We clearly distance ourselves from these nitrites, which are also not permitted in Switzerland. We at lederreinigung-online.de only sell poppers/leather cleaners with the ingredients pentyl nitrite, hexyl nitrite and Canadian Pentyl Formula. You can find out more about this in our post on the ingredients of poppers. If legal security and your health and the health of your fellow human beings is important to you, we only recommend poppers with the ingredient pentyl nitrite (CAS 463-04-7) or hexyl nitrite (UFI V300-A06S-K00V-G02P) or Canadian Pentyl Formula (EG No . 951-169-0). On our site you will only find products based on pentyl nitrite, hexyl nitrite and Canadian Pentyl Formula.

We continuously monitor the legal situation in Europe, Germany and Switzerland and provide information on this page.

Responsible handling of chemicals is very important to us and we do not want to endanger human health at any time. On the contrary, we would like to do our part in raising awareness about poppers in Germany and the legal use of poppers as leather cleaners in Germany.