The dangerous renaissance of ‘whippets’ in the music scene – Paradise Post

By August Brown, Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — 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.