How nitrous oxide has become a mortal – but legal

Nitrous oxide – known colloquially as “laughter gas” – has many uses, from an pain reliever during dental procedures to a ladded whipped cream agent.

Although its euphoric side effects have been known for a long time, the rise in vaping has contributed to creating a perfect delivery vehicle for gas – and a perfect recipe for dependence, warn the experts.

Meg Caldwell’s death was not inevitable.

Florida Horse rider started using nitrous oxide at university eight years ago. But like many young people, she started using more during the pandemic.

The youngest of four sisters, she was “the light of our lives,” said her sister Kathleen dial at the BBC.

But the use of Ms. Caldwell continued to degenerate, to the point that her dependence “began to manage her life”.

She temporarily lost the use of her legs after an overdose, which also made her incontinent. However, she continued to use it, buy it in local smoke stores, inhale it in the parking lot, then return directly to the store to buy more. She sometimes spent hundreds of dollars a day.

She died last November, in one of these parking lots just outside a vape store.

“She didn’t think it would hurt her because she bought her in the smoke store, so she thought she was using this substance legally,” said Dial.

The progression of the dependence of Ms. Caldwell – from abusive youth to fatal constraint – has become more and more common. The annual report of American poison centers revealed that there was a 58% increase in intentional exposure reports to nitrous oxide in the United States between 2023-2024.

In the worst case, the inhalation of nitrous oxide can cause hypoxia, where the brain does not have enough oxygen. This can lead to death. Regular inhalation can also cause vitamin B12 deficiency which can cause nerve damage, degradation of the spine and even paralysis. The number of deaths allocated to nitrous oxide poisoning increased by more than 110% between 2019 and 2023, according to the centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The possession of nitrous oxide was criminalized in the United Kingdom in 2023 after poor use in young people increased during the pandemic. But while many states have also prohibited the recreational use of the product in the United States, it is always legal to sell as a culinary product. Only Louisiana has completely prohibited retail from gas.

Galaxy Gas, a large manufacturer, even offers dishes recipes, including Satay chicken with peanut pepper and watermelon gazpacho on their website. With flavors such as blue raspberry or strawberries and cream, experts warn this escape – as well as major changes in packaging and retail – has contributed to the increase in abusive use.

Until recently, users took single -use metal cans weighing approximately 8 g and inhaled gas using a balloon. But when the use increased during the pandemic, nitrous oxide manufacturers began to sell much larger cans – as important as 2 kg – and, finally, in stores selling electronic vapes and other smoking accessories.

Companies have also started to pack gas in brilliant colored cartridges with conceptions with characters from computer games and television series.

Pat Ausem, from the partnership to end dependence, believes that these developments are the cause of misuse:

“Even being called Galaxy Gas or Miami Magic is marketing,” she said. “If you have large cans, it means that more people can try and use it and it can lead to a lot of peer pressure.”

The BBC contacted comments both in Galaxy Gas and Miami Magic but did not receive an answer. Amazon, where gas is sold online, said that they were aware of abuse customers of nitrogen oxide and that they work to implement other safety measures. In a response to CBS News reports, the BBC information partner in the United States, Galaxy Gas argued that gas was intended for culinary use and that they include a message on their sites warning against improper use.

The concerns about nitrous oxide abuse increased last year, after several videos of people using the product became viral online.

On social networks, videos of young people who get to gas have become a trend. A video downloaded in July 2024 by a fast food restaurant based in Atlanta featured a young man inhaling strawberries and nitrous oxide flavored with the cream saying “My name is Lil t, man”, his voice makes it deeper by gas. To date, the clip has been visualized about 40 million times and generated thousands of copies.

Misk use also appeared in rap clips and clips and Twitch streaming. The guests tried him on the Joe Rogan Show and the rappers, of which Ye (formerly Kanye West), spoke publicly about the abuse of the substance. You have since continued its dentist for “recklessly” providing “you with dangerous quantities of nitrous oxide”.

In response to the trend, Tiktok blocked the research of “Galaxy Gas” and redirected users to a message offering resources on drug addiction and dependence. Rapper SZA also alerted his social media subscribers to his damage and criticized him to “be marketed with mass with black children”.

In March, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an official warning warning against the inhalation of gas after having “observed an increase in adverse event reports after inhalation of nitrous oxide products”.

The FDA has told the BBC that it “continues to actively follow the adverse events linked to improper use of nitrous oxide and will take the appropriate measures to protect public health”.

But for some, these warnings arrived too late.

In 2023, the family of a 25-year-old woman, Marissa Polittte, managed to continue a Nitreuse United Brands distributor for $ 745 million in damages after the radiology technician was killed by a high driver on nitreous oxide. The jury found the company responsible for selling the product knowing that it would be poorly used.

“The death of Marissa Politte should not have happened in the first place, but my God should be the last,” said Johnny Simon, the lawyer for the Politte family at the time. In the years following several deadly traffic accidents involving gas in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Meanwhile, Ms. Caldwell’s family launched a collective recourse against manufacturers and nitrous oxide distributors, in the hope of withdrawing the product from retail sales in the United States for good.

“People who administer nitrous oxide in a dentist office must now spend hours and hours of training, she said.” It is just crazy for me that the drug can be bought in a smoke store from all those who enter. “”

“Unfortunately, it has become very obvious that the manufacturers and owners of smoke stores will not do the moral thing and will not remove the shelves themselves,” said Ms. Dial.