the ravages of nitrous oxide in young people, a very addictive “laughing gas”

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From capsules or even carboys, the youngest inflate balloons which they then inhale. Nitrous oxide, originally used to make whipped cream, is on sale in supermarkets and grocery stores. At first it’s funny, it makes you laugh, it’s even called “laughing gas”. Nawel 30 years old, tested the first time in the evening, with friends: “It’s euphoric, it’s high. We’re disconnected, we’re in another world.”

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“Afterwards, I was really addicted, continues Nawel. Sometimes I woke up, I absolutely had to take the ball. They weren’t balloons, they were canisters! Every day it happened to me [de consommer] five or six demijohns. I needed it.” Five, six carboys is the equivalent of 500 to 600 capsules to make whipped cream. After a few weeks, the nitrous oxide began to reach Nawel’s central nervous system: “At first I started getting tingling in my hands and feet. Then I started losing touch.”

“I no longer felt my legs, my stomach, or my arms. Nothing. I got up, but I couldn’t stand up. I fell. I thought I was going to stay there. I could have stayed there”.

Nawell, 30 years old

at franceinfo

Thibault, 20, even went up to 25 canisters a day.“I have seen most of my loved ones deviate from me in relation to my behavior, he remembers. I go through all the emotions, under the ball: you’re angry, then you’re sad, you’re happy, you want to tear everything away. It really plays with emotions.” And then, he too, one day, wakes up paralyzed: “All that was the most mundane things in life, I couldn’t do it anymore. It really affects neurologically, it’s really something that hurts in the body”.

Fortunately, after a few months, Nawel and Thibault ended up recovering their mobility. But this is not the case for everyone, and we still know little about the possible sequelae, explains Professor Brigitte Chabrol, director of the neuropediatrics department at the Timone hospital in Marseille: “There are forms that become chronic with young people who will keep neurological disorders over the long term. We can’t say if it’s ten, twenty years old, because we don’t yet have enough perspective . “

“There are young people who have been followed for more than two years and who keep signs, discomfort in walking, whereas they were young people who had strictly normal motor skills and no underlying neuromuscular disease”.

Brigitte Chabrol, head of the neuropediatrics department at La Timone hospital in Marseille

at franceinfo

In France, cases of neurological damage due to nitrous oxide have tripled in one year. Neurological problems therefore, but also heart problems, and sometimes even deaths.

The consumption of nitrous oxide has become commonplace among teenagers and young adults. More than a quarter of students have already tried, 5 to 6% of 3rd graders. What prevention should be put in place? If for a year the sale of nitrous oxide has been prohibited to minors, in fact there are “proto” bars at parties. It is sold on the internet for 20-25 euros per cartridge. So Dr Chérif Héroum, head of the neurology department at Montélimar hospital (Drôme) and deputy mayor of the city, decided, for example, to launch an information campaign with a message: “To put it simply: laughing gas is not funny”.

With his double role of doctor and elected official, he will go out to meet college and high school students in Montélimar and show them a cartoon: “It is information that is presented, without value judgment, without guilt. There is no prohibition, it is the danger sign.”

“We insist on the danger. If we are in threatening approaches, with prohibitions, value judgments, it is absolutely counterproductive.”

Dr Chérif Héroum, head of the neurology department at Montélimar hospital

at franceinfo

The French police recently made large seizures of nitrous oxide from the Netherlands and Belgium. The “proto” is indeed the subject of trafficking, says Nicolas Prisse, president of the Interministerial Mission for the Fight against Drugs and Addictive Behaviors (Mildeca). He also calls for the vigilance of French traders who sell it freely: “We cannot let kids leave with a box of nitrous oxide, they are not going to make whipped cream. Honestly, whether they are minors or even young adults, we must try to avoid participating in this trivialization of the consumption of nitrous oxide today in France”.

Nicolas Prisse also invites manufacturers of whipped cream cartridges to change their chemical formula. “There must be a way, he said, to make whipped cream other than with nitrous oxide”.


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