Abstract Nuclear magnetic relaxation (NMR) in a gas of regular (tetrahedral and octahedral) molecules from the point of view of the kinetic theory of transport and relaxation processes based on the Waldmann-Snider equation is considered. A simple expression is obtained for the spin-rotation interaction based on considerations of the molecular symmetry. The form of the spin-rotation coupling which contains, in addition to the so-called "scalar" coupling constant, also a scalar anisotropy part, ⊿c, of the spin-rotation coupling tensor determines, along with the collision operator, the form to be taken by an expansion of the nonequilibrium part of the distribution function-density matrix of the gas. Solutions of the set of coupled differential equations which follow upon application of the moment method to the linearized Waldmann-Snider equation lead to the Bloch equations which define the "spin-lattice" and transverse relaxation times in the gas. Those obtained here are com-parable with those obtained using correlation function theory. However, in this work, due to explicit consideration of the molecular symmetry, it is shown that the "effective" spin-rotation coupling coefficient found in tetrahedral and octahedral molecules is not the same and depends in a simple way on the number of equivalent spins in the molecule.