A story in New York magazine is raising the alarm about nitrous oxide, which is easy to get in wink-wink fashion as an inhalant rather than its marketed use as a culinary tool. What's more, the gas (informally known as laughing gas) has become popular among teens thanks to TikTok videos and the like. Thus, the story's headline: "The next drug epidemic is blue-raspberry flavored." As Ezra Marcus reports, nitrous is easily available in fruit-flavored options on Amazon, in Walmart, or in vape shops. And "in the past few years, as nitrous has grown in popularity, distributors have inundated the market with bigger, brighter, and better-tasting tanks." The problem is that nitrous is "a lot more dangerous than the vapes with which it shares shelf space."
Think seizures, "throat frostbite," brain damage, and even spinal-cord degeneration, writes Marcus. Lawsuits have surfaced over accidents allegedly caused by huffing drivers. The story tracks the history of nitrous, which can be used to make whipped cream and has been used as a pain medication for centuries. The Grateful Dead huffed it, as did Studio 54 clubgoers. The recent surge, however, has brought the gas into play for a much larger group of people and can be chalked up to a mix of factors, including the pandemic and social media. At the same time, federal regulators say they're monitoring use but have yet to take meaningful action. Read the full story, which focuses on the Galaxy Gas brand and includes interviews with smoke-shop employees who reveal how they weren't allowed to use words like "whippets" to customers. (Or read other Longform recaps.)
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