(1) Despite oodles of scientific experiments, [experts] don’t exactly know how nitrous oxide works. “The best surmise,” it says [in Nitrous Oxide, Edmond Eger, ed.], “is that the gas acts indirectly, perhaps through a pain-inhibiting system in the spinal cord that releases a substance whose effect in turn inhibits a particular neurotransmitter required for pain-signal passage.” Check.
(2) No short-term harm is attributed to nitrous oxide, the experts say, although accidents are an occasional problem. A patient in England died in the 1960s after breathing gas that was contaminated with the lethal higher oxides of nitrogen. Inspection standards supposedly are higher here in the U.S., but that doesn’t mean you have nothing to worry about. Barry Kramer, founder of Creem magazine, died in 1981 at age 37 of an apparent overdose involving nitrous and unnamed other drugs, according to news reports. So some caution seems to be in order.
You might also wish to be careful if you decide to manufacture nitrous oxide in your basement. Applying heat to solid ammonium nitrate, which is the customary method of preparation, is a bit tricky, and periodically results in explosions. Two shiploads of the stuff blew up once at Texas City, leveling the town. Fortunately, due to the enormous amount of gas released, no one really cared.
As for long-term effects, nitrous oxide is not a carcinogen or a mutagen. However, chronic exposure can mess up the vitamin B12 in your system, which can lead to impaired DNA synthesis and poor cell growth. Chronic users can end up with something akin to pernicious anemia. Those most in peril are hospital operating-room staff who are exposed to small amounts of leaked gas over long periods, although 24-hour exposure to a high concentration will also do the job. This has not prevented med students (not to mention free-lance dope fiends […]) from freely indulging—supposedly 20% of the pre-meds at one school had tried it. Another interesting factlet is that nitrous oxide is used to pressurize aerosol whipped cream cans. “A resourceful child,” I read here, can give him or herself a dose right in the store by simply inverting the can.
One last word of warning: if you ever decide to cop a whiff from professional anesthesiology equipment, don’t strap on the mask, lest you lose consciousness and kill yourself.*
So, to sum up. Eat lots of spinach before heading off to a Dead tribute show. And let somebody else heat the ammonium nitrate for you. That’s why God invented Eastern European drug cartels, after all.
There was an old TV series called ‘Disaster!’ or something like that. They had a whole episiode devoted tot he Texas City blast. It was like a nuke went off in the harbor, blowing cargo ship onto the shore and killing people a mile away with hurtling debris.
Yeah, I’d be pretty cautious dealing with that stuff.
Nitrous oxide.
Heh.
I knew some guys in college that did “whippets” in the dorms. This involved filling a heavy-duty balloon with the little whipped-cream things using a “cracker,” which was basically a little screw-together cylinder with a hole on top. You’d stand up in front of a chair, inhale the ballon, and you’d pass out and fall back, then suddenly wake up again.
Back in school, I used to do whippit races. You know, you go into a peaceful, law-abiding place: suck down a desert topping can, and run for the exit. It was fun, but in retrospect, stupid. Big Props ( I’m a small white guy ) to you for mentioning Cecil Adams. He has helped me out of many a bar bet. I’m typing this on a Mac, but would caution you. No software. Better box, no support. Kind of like Betamax. I…I..Would switch to PC if I believed they would try to help me. Until the software catches up with the Mac architecture, you are probably better off with a Bill Gates Special.
Ahhhh, a summer spent blissfully working at TCBY in high school.
Jeez, I have NO idea why those cans are depressurized . . .
Spam-word = Against (as in the war against drugs has been a huge success)
I would never consider using whip cream in such a wasteful fashion. Oddly enough the little hidden word down below is “member”. Just what I was thinking.
I’m having big dental work soon and regular novacaine just doesn’t cut it–7 doses last time. Do they still do nitrous?
Aren’t “Poppers” part of the nitrate family? Because I think I did Poppers more than once.
Invented by Austrian philosopher Karl Popper, weren’t they? When he was finished questioning the foundations of logical positivism.
Only if he had a heart attack at the end of his questioning. You’d have to ask his intern, Emyl.
Does no one give a shit about my personal dental issues? Where is the love? Where is the white matter?
Ana, I’m sorry about your dental issues. I have had many nasty dental experiences myself. The worst was when I had to have my gums raised–I think they call it canalization–but it involved about a half hour of cutting the gums away from the teeth, lifting them up, and stitching them. The novocaine worked OK, but I was taking 4 advil every four hours for the next two weeks, and it still hurt. While I was moaning and groaning in my cubicle, a coworker came by to tell me that she had had the same thing done WITHOUT ANESTHETIC because she didn’t like needles.
On a lighter note, isn’t it interesting how denture-wearers refer to their coctails as aperitif?
And how they always keep aperatif on a table by their beds at night!
“You shall not eat whip cream because it has gas …
“And one little whiff turns a man to an ass …”
Is that from Deuteronomy, Swen?
Or would it be Leviticus? I get them mixed up.
Which one says you can’t have cheeseburgers?
(Wince.) Okay. Gail wins. Why the hell would they do this to someone?? It’s right up there with the Prince Albert on the sharp-intake-of-breath scale.
I broke a tooth on a piece of hard candy, the tooth split up above the gum, and in order to put on a crown, the periodontist had to raise the entire gumline. I tried to convince the dentist to pull the tooth and save all the trouble but that is apparently against the dental Hippocratic oath. Moral: hard candy is worse than drugs because drugs don’t break your teeth.
No one will read this, gail, but I just experienced my second root canal. This time the nerve was inflamed, and they did not use nitrous on me even though I’m a major wimp on dental issues. Give me drugs, dammit. I guess the grad student was not qualified to use nitrous. I cannot understand that.
It hurt. Not as much as before they applied anesthetic, but it still hurt. Kids, get your teeth cleaned regularly and you may not have to put up with this crap.
Turing test “probably” as in you will probably have to endure this crap unless you visit your dentist regularly. Like I have not.
I sympathize, David. Whatever happened to painless dentistry?