Gary Otchere looks on as Shoreditch goes numb for nitrous oxide.
In amongst the beer bottles and cigarette ends, metal shells are strewn all around. Am I reporting from Murder Mile? No, nothing to do with bullets, the ‘shells’ are canisters used to fill balloons with nitrous oxide – jocularly known as laughing gas, the latest turn-on for nights out in Shoreditch.
That is, if laughing hysterically and feeling numb is your idea of a good night out.
‘The loons just make the night better,’ one young woman told me. ‘You don’t want to get wasted and drink too much, so once you get tipsy the loons make it 10 times better.’
She was already dizzy enough to make a ‘drink aware’ case for laughing gas!
It is not illegal to inhale nitrous oxide, so I am told. But it is illegal to sell it to persons under 18 years of age. In Shoreditch at night there are not many under 18s in evidence, but whenever the police come walking through the crowd, the people selling nitrous oxide on the street are suddenly not on the street any longer!
‘Laughing gas is legal for adults!,’ one of them complained. ‘So why do the police come and confiscate what we sell? Everybody has got to make a living and if it’s legal what’s wrong with that?’
The seller, who looked like he was in a laughing mood himself, went on to explain: ‘I run once I see police because they take the canisters off of me and do not give me a legitimate reason. They should at least wait until the government has made it illegal before they start bullying us for what we do!’
Nitrous oxide stops oxygen from getting into the brain, thus causing dizziness and numbness. The risk of laughing gas when mixed with alcohol is that it can lead to unconsciousness or even death.