In the vicinity of certain music festivals it is not uncommon to see a trail of colorful balloons and empty cartridges metal. Witness a feast of laughter and dizziness, fast hitting, and fleeting, of drug cheap and legal. These are the remains left by the consumers of nitrous oxide, a substance used in pharmacy and confectionery whose recreational use are beginning to prohibit some countries of Europe, but in Spain only peeps out very shyly.
it Is the laughing gas, a fluid whose properties analgesic and hilarious discovered in the NINETEENTH century dentist Horace Wells. He noted how, after consumption, an individual suffered an attack of laughter, and an important trauma without showing signs of pain. At that moment the substance started two ways: as an anesthetic in dental clinics —and as an adjunct to some medicines— and as a psychotropic in recreational contexts.
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As a recreational drug it is the seventh most used in the world, according to the Global Drug Survey, a global survey that is done each year through the Internet between tens of thousands of consumers. Although it is much more secure than other consumption begins to be of concern in the countries in which is most successful: Germany, Uk, Netherlands… The Government of the Netherlands announced in early December that would prohibit its recreational use, and that it will introduce in its list of illegal substances; and, this same month, the French Senate has approved a bill to ban their sale to minors, given the alarm that generated some cases of neurological disorders by inhalation.
In Spain is a substance that is legal, whose cartridges can be purchased for less than a euro. Although the police seize small quantities once in a while, since their sale for human consumption is considered a crime against public health, its use is anecdotal. Among the regular users of psychoactive substances that respond to the Global Drug Survey (can be completed online) its prevalence was 2.5% and 4%, respectively in 2017 and 2018. In the past five years, the National Institute of Toxicology and Forensic Sciences received only nine calls related to this drug.
David Pere Martínez Oró, of the Unit of Drug Policies of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, explains that in Spain it is taken mainly in festivals and in tourist areas (such as the Balearic islands and the Costa del Sol), but almost always by foreigners. “The partiers Spanish prefer other drugs that give other benefits drug, especially ecstasy, and to a lesser extent, cocaine. Nitrous oxide contributes a few seconds of buzz and laughter, it does not generate the empathy that we so much like to the spaniards, where the component group of the march is very different from that of the north of Europe”, reflects this researcher.
“it Is very residual and does not involve excessive risks for the health, so it’s not even included in official surveys,” explains Fernando Caudevilla, in the Intervention Group on Drugs of the Spanish Society of Family and Community Medicine. “When a drug succeeds, it is because their effects are cool. In the case of the laughing gas, try once in a when you can have his grace, but has no abuse potential, because the third pump you hurts the head and you let him. And by their pharmacology also has a great addiction,” he continues.
And why it is prohibited in other countries? Because, despite being more secure than other substance, no drug is innocuous. The Ministry of Health explains that, as their use entails an alteration of the pain threshold, the degree of alertness and consciousness, can result in a marked increase in the risk of injury or accidents. It is associated with hallucinations, confusion, persistent numbness and injury. In addition, the gas presents significant adverse effects when administered over long periods of time or repeatedly, mainly related to their effects on the metabolism of vitamin B12 and folate. In extreme cases, can lead to death, if ingested in huge amounts that lead to suffocation, although this happens very rarely.
Celia Prat, head of training team of the Foundation for Aid against drug Addiction and believes that its incidence in Spain is not the need for additional measures. “You have to be attentive to its evolution, because of their reduced cost and their availability makes it potentially easy to consume,” he summarizes.
In a context in which youth increasingly rejects more drugs”, in the words of Martínez Prayed, the nitrous oxide has the advantage of being “clean and not to be subjected to the black market”. There, the researcher explains, it could reach a rebound of his consumption, though he believes that the “gut-level fear” of drug that exists in Spain since the eighties, leaving little to their growth.
