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Yahoo
7 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
How 'laughing gas' became a deadly - but legal
Nitrous oxide – known colloquially as "laughing gas" – has many uses, from a painkiller during dental procedures to a whipping agent for canned whipped cream. While its euphoric side effects have long been known, the rise of vaping has helped create a perfect delivery vehicle for the gas - and a perfect recipe for an addiction, experts warn. Meg Caldwell's death wasn't inevitable. The horseback rider from Florida had started using nitrous oxide recreationally in university eight years ago. But like many young people, she started to use more heavily during the pandemic. The youngest of four sisters, she was was "the light of our lives," her sister Kathleen Dial told the BBC. But Ms Caldwell's use continued to escalate, to the point that her addiction "started running her life". She temporarily lost use of her legs after an overdose, which also rendered her incontinent. Still, she continued to use, buying it in local smoke shops, inhaling it in the car park and then heading straight back into the shop to buy more. She sometimes spent hundreds of dollars a day. She died last November, in one of those car parks just outside a vape shop. "She didn't think that it would hurt her because she was buying it in the smoke shop, so she thought she was using this substance legally," Ms Dial said. The progression of Ms Caldwell's addiction – from youthful misuse to life-threatening compulsion – has become increasingly common. The Annual Report of America's Poison Centers found there was a 58 % increase in reports of intentional exposure to nitrous oxide in the US between 2023-2024. What is nitrous oxide and how dangerous is it? 'Daily use of laughing gas left me in a wheelchair' In a worst-case scenario, inhalation of nitrous oxide can lead to hypoxia, where the brain does not get enough oxygen. This can result in death. Regular inhalation can also lead to a Vitamin B12 deficiency which can cause nerve damage, degradation of the spinal column and even paralysis. The number of deaths attributed to nitrous oxide poisonings rose by more than 110% between 2019 and 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Possession of nitrous oxide was criminalised in the UK in 2023 after misuse among young people increased during the pandemic. But while many states have also outlawed the recreational use of the product in the US, it is still legal to sell as a culinary product. Only Louisiana has totally banned the retail sale of the gas. Galaxy Gas, a major manufacturer, even offers recipes for dishes, including Chicken Satay with Peanut Chili Foam and Watermelon Gazpacho on their website. With flavours like Blue Raspberry or Strawberries and Cream, experts warn this loophole - as well as major changes in packaging and retail - has contributed to the rise in misuse. Until recently users would take single-use plain metal canisters weighing around 8g and inhale the gas using a balloon. But when usage spiked during the pandemic, nitrous oxide manufacturers began selling much larger canisters online – as large as 2kg – and, eventually, in shops selling electronic vapes and other smoking paraphernalia. Companies also began to package the gas in bright colourful canisters with designs featuring characters from computer games and television series. Pat Aussem, of the Partnership to End Addiction, believes these developments are behind increased misuse: "Even being called Galaxy Gas or Miami Magic is marketing," she said. "If you have large canisters, then it means that more people can try it and use it and that can lead to a lot of peer pressure." The BBC reached out for comment to both Galaxy Gas and Miami Magic but did not receive a response. Amazon, where the gas is sold online, has said they are aware of customers misusing nitrous oxide and that they are working to implement further safety measures. In a response to reporting from CBS News, the BBC's news partner in the US, Galaxy Gas maintained that the gas was intended for culinary use and that they include a message on their sites warning against misuse. Concern about nitrous oxide misuse increased last year, after several videos of people using the product went viral online. On social media, videos of young people getting high on gas became a trend. A video uploaded in July 2024 by an Atlanta-based fast-food restaurant featured a young man inhaling Strawberries and Cream flavoured nitrous oxide saying "My name's Lil T, man", his voice made deeper by the gas. To date the clip has been viewed about 40 million times and spawned thousands of copies. Misuse also featured heavily in rap music videos and Twitch streaming. Guests tried it on the Joe Rogan Show and rappers including Ye (formerly Kanye West) spoke about abusing the substance publicly. Ye has since sued his dentist for "recklessly" supplying Ye with "dangerous amounts of nitrous oxide". In response to the trend, TikTok blocked searches for "galaxy gas," and redirected users to a message offering resources about substance use and addiction. Rapper SZA also alerted her social media followers about its harms and slammed it for "being MASS marketed to black children". In March, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an official alert warning against inhaling the gas after it "observed an increase in reports of adverse events after inhalation of nitrous oxide products". The FDA told the BBC that it "continues to actively track adverse events related to nitrous oxide misuse and will take appropriate actions to protect the public health". But for some, these warnings came too late. In 2023, the family of a 25-year-old woman, Marissa Politte successfully sued Nitrous Distributor United Brands for $745m in damages after the radiology technician was killed by a driver high on nitrous oxide. The jury found the company responsible for selling the product in the knowledge that it would be misused. "Marissa Politte's death shouldn't have happened in the first place, but my God, it should be the last," Johnny Simon, the Politte family's lawyer, said at the time. In the years since there have been several fatal traffic accidents involving the gas both in the US and the UK. Meanwhile, Ms Caldwell's family have launched a class action lawsuit against manufacturers and distributors of nitrous oxide, hoping to remove the product from retail sales across the US for good. "The people who administer nitrous oxide in a dentist office now have to go through hours and hours of training, she said. "It just is crazy to me that the drug can be purchased in a smoke shop to anyone who goes in." "Unfortunately, it's become very obvious that the manufacturers and the owners of the smoke shops are not going to do the moral thing and take this off the shelves themselves," Ms Dial said. Generation K: The disturbing rise of ketamine abuse among young people What is nitrous oxide and why is it being banned? Nitrous oxide: What is it and how dangerous is it?
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Nitrous oxide recreational use linked to brain damage, sudden death, but ‘laughing gas' still sold in U.S.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning Americans about the ever-increasing and potentially deadly recreational use of nitrous oxide products, particularly among young people. Marketed with names like "Galaxy Gas" and "Miami Magic," and often sold in steel cartridges known as "whippets," these products are cheap and readily available at gas stations, convenience stores, smoke shops and major retail outlets, including Walmart. They're also sold online. As an assistant professor of public health who studies these products, I'm aware of how dangerous they can be. Recreational and continued use of nitrous oxide can cause a wide range of serious health problems, and in some cases, death. Long list of potential harms The list of serious side effects from frequent use is long. It includes: cognitive impairment, memory problems, hallucinations, headaches, lightheadedness, mood disturbances, blood clots, limb weakness, trouble walking, peripheral neuropathy, impaired bowel or bladder function, spinal cord degeneration and irreversible brain damage. Vitamin B-12 deficiency is common and can lead to nerve and brain damage. Deaths in the United States attributed to abuse of nitrous oxide jumped more than 100% between 2019 and 2023; over a five-year period, emergency department visits rose 32%. All told, more than 13 million Americans have misused nitrous oxide at least once during their lifetimes. This includes children: In 2024, just over 4% of eighth-graders and about 2% of 12th-graders said they've tried inhalants. Nitrous oxide is among the most abused of these inhalants due to its low cost, easy availability and commercial appeal -- one flavor of the gas is named "pink bubble gum." Laughing gas parties Because of legal loopholes in the Food and Drug Administration Act, nitrous oxide remains unregulated. What's more, U.S. scientists have done relatively little research on its abuse, partly because the public still perceives the substance as benign, particularly when compared with alcohol. The few studies on the use of nitrous oxide are limited mainly to case reports -- that is, a report on a single patient. Although limited in scope, they're alarming. More thorough studies are available in the United Kingdom and Europe, where there's even more demand for the product. One example: Over a 20-year period, 56 people died in England and Wales after recreational use. Typically, deaths occur from hypoxia, which is the lack of oxygen to the brain, or accidents occurring while intoxicated by the gas, such as car wrecks or falls. Americans have known about the effects of nitrous oxide for centuries. Before becoming a medicinal aid, nitrous oxide was popular at "laughing gas" parties during the late 1700s. Physicians began using it in the United States around the mid-19th century after Horace Wells, a dentist, attended a stage show -- called Laughing Gas Entertainment -- and saw the numbing effect that nitrous oxide had on audience volunteers. By coincidence, Wells was having a wisdom tooth removed the next day, so he tried the gas during his procedure. The nitrous oxide worked; Wells said he felt no pain. Thereafter, medicinal use of the gas was gradually accepted. Today, nitrous oxide is often used in dentists' offices. It's safe under a doctor's supervision as a mild sedative that serves as a pain reliever and numbing agent. Nitrous oxide also benefits some patients with severe psychiatric disorders, including treatment-resistant depression and bipolar depression. It may also help with anxiety and pain management. Bans and restrictions No federal age restrictions exist for purchasing nitrous oxide products, although a few states have passed age limits. As of May 2025, four U.S. states -- Louisiana, Michigan, Alabama and California -- have banned the recreational use of nitrous oxide, and more than 30 states are working on legislation to ban or at least restrict sale of the products. In addition, numerous lawsuits filed against the manufacturers are in court. Research shows school prevention programs help keep kids from using these products. So does early screening of patients by primary care and mental health physicians. The sooner they can intervene, the more likely that ongoing therapy will work. Through appropriate legislation, regulation, education and intervention, nitrous oxide abuse can be slowed or stopped. Otherwise, these products -- with their sleek packaging and attractive social media campaigns that obscure their dangers -- remain a growing threat to our children. Andrew Yockey is an assistant professor of public health at the University of Mississippi. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The views and opinions in this commentary are solely those of the author.
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Party with gas, play with fire: the dangerous renaissance of 'whippets' in the music scene
In November, Bob Bryar, the 44-year-old former drummer for the emo band My Chemical Romance, was found dead in his Tennessee home. Months later, Bryar's autopsy raised a possible contributing factor in his death — three canisters of nitrous oxide found next to his corpse, with tubing for inhalation still attached. Nitrous oxide is a common product with medical, industrial and culinary uses, but it's also used as a recreational drug when inhaled. The Bedford County Medical Examiner's office in Tennessee said the nitrous oxide equipment found with Bryar raised questions of an 'intentional or accidental overdose,' though Bryar's cause of death was 'undetermined' due to the state of decomposition. The circumstances of Bryar's death unnerved fans of My Chemical Romance albums like 'The Black Parade.' But they also raised new worries about nitrous oxide abuse in music communities today. The compound is known colloquially among recreational drug users as 'whippets,' "balloons," 'hippie crack' or 'Galaxy Gas,' after one popular brand. Several prominent rap and R&B artists have recently spoken out the negative impacts of nitrous oxide within their scenes. While opioids like fentanyl are a much more acute threat to drug users, this old and often misunderstood substance might be a renewed concern for festival-goers as well. The Los Angeles City Council has proposed banning its sale, but is that the most effective strategy to keep users safe? 'I think we're clearly seeing another wave of nitrous oxide having rising popularity,' said Mitchell Gomez, the executive director of the drug harm reduction organization DanceSafe, which works to keep music fans safe at festivals and concerts. 'There are lots of people entering this market with different flavorings, different sizes, different delivery nozzles. But there's a balancing act. If we lived in a world where you could pass a law and suddenly nobody could get it, a ban would make sense. But we don't live in that world.' Read more: Nitrous oxide tanks found beside late My Chemical Romance drummer Bob Bryar Nitrous oxide was first synthesized in the late 18th century, by dampening iron filings with nitric acid and heating it to create a gas. It interrupts the ways neurotransmitters communicate in the brain for a brief period — usually less than a minute unless inhaled continuously. Its effects, including a languid euphoria with light hallucinations, were quickly noted. For decades, it was a popular party drug among the English aristocracy, who reveled in 'laughing gas parties' before it was first used as an anesthetic and analgesic in medical settings. Nitrous oxide also has industrial uses to increase the power of internal combustion engines, and as an aerosol propellant for foods like whipped cream. The brand Galaxy Gas comes in a variety of flavors like mango smoothie and vanilla cupcake for such purposes. (The company did not respond to requests for comment.) Metal canisters are easily purchasable in local vape shops and online, even though mass retailers like Amazon and Walmart have pulled listings more recently. This month, the Food and Drug Administration issued a new warning against inhaling nitrous oxide: "These products are marketed as both unflavored and flavored nitrous oxide canisters and are sold as a food processing propellant for whipped cream and culinary food use. Intentional misuse or inhalation of contents can lead to serious adverse health events, including death." "The prevalence of N2O use is difficult to quantify but appears to be increasing," cited one International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health study in 2022. "Research on N2O harms and application of harm reduction strategies are limited," but "recreational nitrous oxide use is popular with young people." Inhaling nitrous oxide has long- and short-term risks that are worth considering, said Dr. Brian Hurley, medical director of the bureau of substance abuse prevention and control at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. While inhaling it, nitrous oxide can cause 'dizziness and dissociation, where people feel essentially that they're not in their bodies,' Hurley said. 'People might lose track of where they are, blurred vision, loss of balance. There's nausea, chest tightness, headache, vomiting and impaired memory." Long-term use can also cause a deficiency of vitamin B-12, which leads to reduced white blood cell count and anemia. The more immediate risk comes when users, often alone, attach tubing equipment to inhale the gas in larger amounts. 'If somebody straps on nitrous oxide with a mask and loses consciousness, their oxygen level isn't being monitored,' Hurley said. 'People can actually die from suffocation because they're not getting any oxygen. They're breathing, but they're breathing nitrous oxide, and now they're anesthetized, so they're not in a position to respond to take the mask off. So we see deaths from nitrous oxide, not like if they took an opioid and their respiratory drive was suppressed, but because they were anesthetized and didn't have a path of their airway to oxygen.' Purchasing nitrous oxide with the intent to inhale is a misdemeanor in California — users face six months in jail and/or a $1,000 fine. Nonetheless, nitrous oxide has been popular in music and festival communities for decades. Fans sucking on balloons of nitrous oxide are a common sight outside jam band concerts. Major festivals like Glastonbury banned the substance years ago, and Coachella bans both aerosol products and drug paraphernalia. But the substance has earned new fans on social media platforms like TikTok, where influencers sell nitrous equipment or show off its euphoric, dissociative effects. The Black music community in particular, has started to push back on the substance's popularity. 'Sorry to be old n annoying but.. Is no one gonna talk about how galaxy gas came out of no where and is being MASS marketed to black children?' the singer SZA wrote on X in September, linking to a study from Yale's school of medicine. "The government is doing NOTHING ? .. since when are we selling whip its at the store ???? Somebody protect the children.' That same month, the rapper Lil Gnar posted a video with a caption 'How to use Galaxy Gas.' He opened the nozzle and chucked the canister into a gas station dumpster. In 2022, at a BET tribute to the disgraced rap mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs, rapper Kanye West (now known as Ye) said that "I was at the dentist office the other day, I was taking a nitrous oxide, I suggest it if anybody is, like, stressed out." Last year, Milo Yiannopoulos, the right-wing provocateur and West's former chief of staff, said in an affidavit to the FBI and the California Dental Board that "employees at all levels of the company were worrying about Ye's dependence on the gas and speaking openly about it. Ye talked about it non-stop in meetings. He seemed to be in and out of the inhaler mask on a near-constant basis." Other fans have artists like Lil Uzi Vert, who appeared in a video using nitrous oxide on social media. ("They said I was lost," Uzi rapped on their recent track "We Good," which addressed their nitrous use. "They thought I was a dead guy / I was on that NOS.") For those who work in harm reduction within drug and music scenes, it's hard to tell if nitrous oxide is more popular or just more visible. 'I'm not sure if this is a new wave, but we do know that the new party drugs have been changing,' said Laura Guzman, executive director of the National Harm Reduction Coalition. 'There's a shift in the way young adults are partying. There's less alcohol and cocaine, and more use of ketamine and psychedelics like mushrooms.' For concert promoters who have rightly focused on preventing opioid overdoses, fans' nitrous use may call for fresh attention. 'What we would love is that in any party scene, there are actual conversations about health,' Guzman said. 'Avoid using alone or in dangerous or isolated places. Never put plastic bags over the head or block breathing. Avoid using it in closed spaces without ventilation. Try to avoid drinking alcohol or taking other drugs with it. Give yourself time to breathe fresh air.' Read more: L.A. wants to ban using nitrous oxide to get high. But challenges loom Local governments have explored a blanket ban on retail sales in Los Angeles. In a 14-0 vote late last year, the Los Angeles City Council asked the city attorney to make recommendations for implementing a ban on the retail sale of nitrous oxide in Los Angeles, following similar regulations in Rialto. 'Nitrous oxide is a trending drug that is extremely addictive, harmful, and now more than ever, easily accessible at smoke and tobacco shops across the city,' Councilmember Imelda Padilla said last year. 'California law allows individuals 18 years and older to purchase nitrous oxide, as long as it is not inhaled after purchase,' Padilla continued. 'This makes the law difficult to enforce and allows vendors, such as smoke shops and liquor stores, to sell nitrous oxide products. Studies have shown that adding flavors and colorful packaging to drug products play a key role in youth initiation and continued use.' Experts in harm reduction have doubts that a retail ban will do much to prevent abuse though, and might lead nitrous users to buy from unsafe sources and get high in more dangerous environments. Rather than purchasing a flavored food product sold at a retail outlet, they might look for industrial alternatives full of toxic heavy metals, or use it in private with greater suffocation risks. 'This idea that you're going to ban it in an effective way seems really unlikely,' Gomez said. 'You can probably make it a little more expensive for consumers and constrict access. But if you've made it illegal, the people selling it are [by definition] criminals. Whereas now, if there's a problem with a particular batch, you could recall it. If a company was intentionally advertising towards minors, you could go after those bad actors. 'There's a reason this drug was in heavy use by the 1800s,' he continued. 'I just don't really think that there's a way of effectively banning a substance when that substance exists in such massive quantities within perfectly valid industrial uses. Diversion is just too easy.' While nitrous oxide may not pose the same public health risk as opioids, it's been an established part of contemporary party culture for centuries. Celebrity deaths and concern from other artists may be an opportunity for more effective public health messaging, said Hurley. "I think what we do see now is waves of awareness,' he said. 'When there are high profile deaths, there's a rush of awareness around inhalant use as a factor impacting the health and wellness of our community. 'I don't think that people think inhaling nitrous oxide from a canister intended for charging food products mistakes that for a healthy behavior,' he continued. 'But I do think there is the perception that the risk is small. We want to help make sure the community is well aware of the risks associated with nitrous oxide, so that people can make informed decisions.' Get notified when the biggest stories in Hollywood, culture and entertainment go live. Sign up for L.A. Times entertainment alerts. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
25-03-2025
- Health
- Los Angeles Times
Party with gas, play with fire: the dangerous renaissance of ‘whippets' in the music scene
In November, Bob Bryar, the 44-year-old former drummer for the emo band My Chemical Romance, was found dead in his Tennessee home. Months later, Bryar's autopsy raised a possible contributing factor in his death — three canisters of nitrous oxide found next to his corpse, with tubing for inhalation still attached. Nitrous oxide is a common product with medical, industrial and culinary uses, but it's also used as a recreational drug when inhaled. The Bedford County Medical Examiner's office in Tennessee said the nitrous oxide equipment found with Bryar raised questions of an 'intentional or accidental overdose,' though Bryar's cause of death was 'undetermined' due to the state of decomposition. The circumstances of Bryar's death unnerved fans of My Chemical Romance albums like 'The Black Parade.' But they also raised new worries about nitrous oxide abuse in music communities today. The compound is known colloquially among recreational drug users as 'whippets,' 'balloons,' 'hippie crack' or 'Galaxy Gas,' after one popular brand. Several prominent rap and R&B artists have recently spoken out the negative impacts of nitrous oxide within their scenes. While opioids like fentanyl are a much more acute threat to drug users, this old and often misunderstood substance might be a renewed concern for festival-goers as well. The Los Angeles City Council has proposed banning its sale, but is that the most effective strategy to keep users safe? 'I think we're clearly seeing another wave of nitrous oxide having rising popularity,' said Mitchell Gomez, the executive director of the drug harm reduction organization DanceSafe, which works to keep music fans safe at festivals and concerts. 'There are lots of people entering this market with different flavorings, different sizes, different delivery nozzles. But there's a balancing act. If we lived in a world where you could pass a law and suddenly nobody could get it, a ban would make sense. But we don't live in that world.' Nitrous oxide was first synthesized in the late 18th century, by dampening iron filings with nitric acid and heating it to create a gas. It interrupts the ways neurotransmitters communicate in the brain for a brief period — usually less than a minute unless inhaled continuously. Its effects, including a languid euphoria with light hallucinations, were quickly noted. For decades, it was a popular party drug among the English aristocracy, who reveled in 'laughing gas parties' before it was first used as an anesthetic and analgesic in medical settings. Nitrous oxide also has industrial uses to increase the power of internal combustion engines, and as an aerosol propellant for foods like whipped cream. The brand Galaxy Gas comes in a variety of flavors like mango smoothie and vanilla cupcake for such purposes. (The company did not respond to requests for comment.) Metal canisters are easily purchasable in local vape shops and online, even though mass retailers like Amazon and Walmart have pulled listings more recently. This month, the Food and Drug Administration issued a new warning against inhaling nitrous oxide: 'These products are marketed as both unflavored and flavored nitrous oxide canisters and are sold as a food processing propellant for whipped cream and culinary food use. Intentional misuse or inhalation of contents can lead to serious adverse health events, including death.' 'The prevalence of N2O use is difficult to quantify but appears to be increasing,' cited one International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health study in 2022. 'Research on N2O harms and application of harm reduction strategies are limited,' but 'recreational nitrous oxide use is popular with young people.' Inhaling nitrous oxide has long- and short-term risks that are worth considering, said Dr. Brian Hurley, medical director of the bureau of substance abuse prevention and control at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. While inhaling it, nitrous oxide can cause 'dizziness and dissociation, where people feel essentially that they're not in their bodies,' Hurley said. 'People might lose track of where they are, blurred vision, loss of balance. There's nausea, chest tightness, headache, vomiting and impaired memory.' Long-term use can also cause a deficiency of vitamin B-12, which leads to reduced white blood cell count and anemia. The more immediate risk comes when users, often alone, attach tubing equipment to inhale the gas in larger amounts. 'If somebody straps on nitrous oxide with a mask and loses consciousness, their oxygen level isn't being monitored,' Hurley said. 'People can actually die from suffocation because they're not getting any oxygen. They're breathing, but they're breathing nitrous oxide, and now they're anesthetized, so they're not in a position to respond to take the mask off. So we see deaths from nitrous oxide, not like if they took an opioid and their respiratory drive was suppressed, but because they were anesthetized and didn't have a path of their airway to oxygen.' Purchasing nitrous oxide with the intent to inhale is a misdemeanor in California — users face six months in jail and/or a $1,000 fine. Nonetheless, nitrous oxide has been popular in music and festival communities for decades. Fans sucking on balloons of nitrous oxide are a common sight outside jam band concerts. Major festivals like Glastonbury banned the substance years ago, and Coachella bans both aerosol products and drug paraphernalia. But the substance has earned new fans on social media platforms like TikTok, where influencers sell nitrous equipment or show off its euphoric, dissociative effects. The Black music community in particular, has started to push back on the substance's popularity. 'Sorry to be old n annoying but.. Is no one gonna talk about how galaxy gas came out of no where and is being MASS marketed to black children?' the singer SZA wrote on X in September, linking to a study from Yale's school of medicine. 'The government is doing NOTHING ? .. since when are we selling whip its at the store ???? Somebody protect the children.' That same month, the rapper Lil Gnar posted a video with a caption 'How to use Galaxy Gas.' He opened the nozzle and chucked the canister into a gas station dumpster. In 2022, at a BET tribute to the disgraced rap mogul Sean 'Diddy' Combs, rapper Kanye West (now known as Ye) said that 'I was at the dentist office the other day, I was taking a nitrous oxide, I suggest it if anybody is, like, stressed out.' Last year, Milo Yiannopoulos, the right-wing provocateur and West's former chief of staff, said in an affidavit to the FBI and the California Dental Board that 'employees at all levels of the company were worrying about Ye's dependence on the gas and speaking openly about it. Ye talked about it non-stop in meetings. He seemed to be in and out of the inhaler mask on a near-constant basis.' Other fans have artists like Lil Uzi Vert, who appeared in a video using nitrous oxide on social media. ('They said I was lost,' Uzi rapped on their recent track 'We Good,' which addressed their nitrous use. 'They thought I was a dead guy / I was on that NOS.') For those who work in harm reduction within drug and music scenes, it's hard to tell if nitrous oxide is more popular or just more visible. 'I'm not sure if this is a new wave, but we do know that the new party drugs have been changing,' said Laura Guzman, executive director of the National Harm Reduction Coalition. 'There's a shift in the way young adults are partying. There's less alcohol and cocaine, and more use of ketamine and psychedelics like mushrooms.' For concert promoters who have rightly focused on preventing opioid overdoses, fans' nitrous use may call for fresh attention. 'What we would love is that in any party scene, there are actual conversations about health,' Guzman said. 'Avoid using alone or in dangerous or isolated places. Never put plastic bags over the head or block breathing. Avoid using it in closed spaces without ventilation. Try to avoid drinking alcohol or taking other drugs with it. Give yourself time to breathe fresh air.' Local governments have explored a blanket ban on retail sales in Los Angeles. In a 14-0 vote late last year, the Los Angeles City Council asked the city attorney to make recommendations for implementing a ban on the retail sale of nitrous oxide in Los Angeles, following similar regulations in Rialto. 'Nitrous oxide is a trending drug that is extremely addictive, harmful, and now more than ever, easily accessible at smoke and tobacco shops across the city,' Councilmember Imelda Padilla said last year. 'California law allows individuals 18 years and older to purchase nitrous oxide, as long as it is not inhaled after purchase,' Padilla continued. 'This makes the law difficult to enforce and allows vendors, such as smoke shops and liquor stores, to sell nitrous oxide products. Studies have shown that adding flavors and colorful packaging to drug products play a key role in youth initiation and continued use.' Experts in harm reduction have doubts that a retail ban will do much to prevent abuse though, and might lead nitrous users to buy from unsafe sources and get high in more dangerous environments. Rather than purchasing a flavored food product sold at a retail outlet, they might look for industrial alternatives full of toxic heavy metals, or use it in private with greater suffocation risks. 'This idea that you're going to ban it in an effective way seems really unlikely,' Gomez said. 'You can probably make it a little more expensive for consumers and constrict access. But if you've made it illegal, the people selling it are [by definition] criminals. Whereas now, if there's a problem with a particular batch, you could recall it. If a company was intentionally advertising towards minors, you could go after those bad actors. 'There's a reason this drug was in heavy use by the 1800s,' he continued. 'I just don't really think that there's a way of effectively banning a substance when that substance exists in such massive quantities within perfectly valid industrial uses. Diversion is just too easy.' While nitrous oxide may not pose the same public health risk as opioids, it's been an established part of contemporary party culture for centuries. Celebrity deaths and concern from other artists may be an opportunity for more effective public health messaging, said Hurley. 'I think what we do see now is waves of awareness,' he said. 'When there are high profile deaths, there's a rush of awareness around inhalant use as a factor impacting the health and wellness of our community. 'I don't think that people think inhaling nitrous oxide from a canister intended for charging food products mistakes that for a healthy behavior,' he continued. 'But I do think there is the perception that the risk is small. We want to help make sure the community is well aware of the risks associated with nitrous oxide, so that people can make informed decisions.'
Arab Times
15-03-2025
- Health
- Arab Times
FDA warns of misuse of laughing gas sold in colorful, flavored canisters
WASHINGTON, March 15, (AP): US health officials are tracking a rise in injuries tied to the misuse of nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, including some brands that are sold in small canisters containing flavors like blueberry, strawberry and watermelon. The Food and Drug Administration on Friday warned consumers that inhaling the gas for its euphoric effects can cause dangerously low blood pressure, leading to loss of consciousness and injuries. The agency flagged a number products sold in colorful packaging at gas stations, vape shops and online including Cosmic Gas, Galaxy Gas and MassGass. Nitrous gas is traditionally used as a sedative for patients in dental offices and hospitals. It's also found in pressurized cans of whipped cream. But teens and adults have long misused those products to get high. The gas can briefly disrupt oxygen flow to the brain. Companies selling the products cited by regulators advertise them "for culinary use only' and often include disclaimers on their websites warning against inhaling. But videos of young people using the products recreationally have circulated on social media platforms for years. The FDA said it has seen "an increase in reports of adverse events' with nitrous products. And poison control centers have also reported emergency calls from people who had to be rushed to the hospital after collapsing while misusing the products. There are no federal limits on who can purchase nitrous oxide, although some states have passed minimum age requirements. The FDA regulates the gas as a medical product when used by doctors and dentists, although it's unclear how much oversight it would have of products marketed for culinary use.
