Fashionable drug among young people Need for education about nitrous oxide abuse in Bonn increases

Bonn · For some time now, young people have increasingly been inhaling nitrous oxide to get a short high. So far, there have hardly been any incidents in clinics in Bonn. However, the centre for addiction prevention "update" sees a need for education.

Empty gas bottles are lying around the Juridicum in Bonn. Young people inhale laughing gas with the help of balloons.

Empty gas bottles are lying around the Juridicum in Bonn. Young people inhale laughing gas with the help of balloons.

Foto: Meike Böschemeyer

It is colourless and odourless and can have dangerous side effects if used incorrectly: Nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas. Even before the Corona pandemic, the gas had become something of a fashionable drug among young people in some countries around the world. Procurement presents few hurdles: Since 2016, nitrous oxide has been legally available and can be bought on the internet or in supermarkets for as little as 50 cents each, for example in the form of cream capsules. These are intended for foaming cream and contain N2O, the chemical formula for nitrous oxide.

Passers-by in Bonn have also observed young people inhaling the gas. A few days ago, several cartridges and empty balloons piled up at a rubbish container at the Juridicum. With them: plastic cups and empty glass bottles - obviously the remains of a party. To consume the laughing gas, the youths let the nitrous oxide flow into balloons and then inhale the contents. The subsequent high, which leaves consumers feeling euphoric and woozy, lasts only a short time, from 30 seconds to three minutes. A wrong or too high dosage can lead to loss of consciousness and memory as well as psychosis.

The fact that young people have been admitted to a Bonn clinic after abusing laughing gas has not been the case at the GFO clinics in Bonn so far. Stephan Buderus, specialist in paediatrics and gastroenterologist for children and adolescents as well as head of the paediatrics department, said that he had not yet come across any incidents of laughing gas abuse among adolescents.

Counselling centre sees need for counselling despite small number of cases

The situation is similar at Bonn University Hospital. Although the hospital does not currently have a child and adolescent psychiatric unit, two young adults were treated there in the past three months in the context of laughing gas, according to Juliana Stockheim, deputy press officer. No cases were recorded in the entire year 2022, she said. This is also the case at the LVR Clinic in Bonn: neither Ulf Thiemann, head physician of child and adolescent psychiatry, nor Markus Banger, medical director, are aware of any cases.

However, the drug counsellors of the specialist centre for addiction prevention "update", an institution of the outpatient addiction support of Caritas and Diakonie, see a great need for education on the subject. "There are more and more requests from schools asking us to advise the young people," says spokesperson Mechthild Greten.

In the context of prevention events, the colleagues often ask what kind of experiences the young people have had with drugs, "and laughing gas comes up more often there," she said. "These young people don't show up in our counselling. It could be that they are not aware of how dangerous the use of nitrous oxide can be," Greten speculates.

Although empty cartridges are occasionally seen at rubbish containers in the city area, "we are not aware of an increased volume in the grey bin," says Bonnorange spokesperson Jérôme Lefèvre. "Nor has it been noticed at the recycling centres that young people would increasingly deliver cream capsules there.“

The field of application of nitrous oxide is actually in medicine. "Laughing gas is still used in dentistry for sedating patients, especially children," the German Dental Association informed. "Compared to other countries, this type of sedation is less common in Germany. Dentists obtain nitrous oxide directly from the manufacturers of medical gases." There is no evidence for a shortage due to young people consuming nitrous oxide, it said.

(Original text: Jill Mylonas / Translation: Mareike Graepel)

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