A common sight at concerts, nitrous oxide abuse is soaring, prompting health concerns

Every party needs balloons. These just happen to be filled with laughing gas.

“We don’t do it that often. It’s funny for about 30 seconds,” said a concertgoer outside Red Rocks Amphitheatre, who was preparing to inhale nitrous oxide from a balloon before The String Cheese Incident played there in mid-July. She requested anonymity for fear of job reprisal. “There’s not really that much thought to it. It’s a stupid drug. The dumbest out of them all.”

Perched in the bed of a silver pick-up with friends in Lower South Lot 1, the 20-something woman pinched the end of the pastel blue balloon as she brought it to her lips, then inhaled until the balloon went limp. A minute or so of euphoric wooziness followed, and her voice briefly dropped in pitch due to the density of the gas. Elsewhere in the parking lot, vendors — nitrous tanks poking out of their trunks — were selling balloons in different sizes, at $10 to $30 a pop. (Vendors approached by The Denver Post at Red Rocks weren’t interested in commenting.)

Nitrous oxide powers whip cream canisters and sedates patients in dentists’ offices, but huffing it for fun can lead to addiction, injury and death. Still, the practice is becoming more common, not just in parks and concerts, but in widely imitated viral videos. A wave of colorfully branded new nitrous products has alarmed medical professionals who see it as a public health problem that’s hard to track, treat and warn against — even as most users consider it to be harmless fun.

Balloons and cannisters, known as whippets, have been a common sight for decades in concert-venue parking lots, particularly in Colorado’s thriving jam-band scene at Phish, Dead and Company, Widespread Panic, and other shows. It’s cheekily known as “hippie crack” because of its association with those bands, and people can buy nitrous from vendors at the unofficial marketplace of drugs, jewelry and merchandise that often accompanies these shows.

The gas is perfectly legal to buy (for those over 18) when used for medical or culinary purposes, though not for recreational use. Nevertheless, it is widely available in head shops and online.

But when used incorrectly — and not, for example, under the supervision of a dentist — inhaling nitrous “can lead to asphyxiation and, if deprived of too much oxygen, life-threatening seizures or even death,” said Shireen Banerji, director of Rocky Mountain Poison & Drug Safety.

In addition to the potential for brain damage, recreational users can get frostbite of the mouth and soft palate, according to a New England Journal of Medicine study that documented a severe injury involving the mouth and throat. It’s a condition sometimes referred to as “lung freeze.”

Despite the risks, nitrous abuse appears to be growing — and trendy. Between 2019 and 2023, the U.S. saw an alarming, 110% increase in deaths due to hypoxia (or oxygen deprivation to the brain) stemming from nitrous oxide abuse, according to researchers. Nitrous-related emergency room visits grew by 32% over five years, said the Drug Abuse Warning Network. The data did not include the number of visits or people affected.

Data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health published in 2024 showed that 13 million people have tried nitrous for recreational purposes in their lifetimes, as compared with 224.3 million people ages 12 and older who have tried alcohol.

Notably, 2.9 million Americans 12 and older used inhalants in the past year, according to the survey. That covers nitrous oxide, but also poppers, household solvents and aerosols. The survey found that roughly 564,000 people aged 12 to 17 also used inhalants within the last year.

Social media seems to be glorifying it, and posts about nitrous have racked up tens of millions of views, while the companies that sell — such as Galaxy Gas, ExoticWhip, and Monster Gas — are offering newly cand-colored branding, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which renewed warnings of nitrous abuse and addiction this year.

The result is a resurgence that has burnished nitrous’s longtime reputation among users as a cheap, easy high — and one that has leaked out of concert parking lots and into the mainstream.

The latest FDA warnings on nitrous were prompted by “an increase in reports of adverse events after inhalation …” according to a June update from the agency. That means increased risks of vitamin B12-deficiency and “related neurological and hematological effects associated with heavy use,” said the National Institutes of Health. Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control, the University of Mississippi, Michigan’s Wayne State University and others have also expressed concern this year about the rise they’ve documented in nitrous addiction and attributed deaths.

On Reddit, however, users casually discuss buying 35 to 50 lb. tanks of food-grade nitrous before concerts from Phish and Billy Strings, whether from Denver wholesalers such as Tanks Express and Gargamel’s Kitchen, or local head shops like Purple Haze and online retailers such as Amazon, eBay and Walmart.

Tanks Express, which uses images from “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” to advertise 24/7 delivery of nitrous tanks to Denver and Boulder customers on Instagram, did not respond to a request for comment. Gargamel’s Kitchen owner Jacob Catanzarite agreed to an interview but did not respond to follow-up messages.

Nitrous-product sales have gone up in recent months at Myxed Up Creations, said Kyle Manibusan, assistant manager at the 5800 E. Colfax Ave. head shop location. He doesn’t question why people buy nitrous products there, but he does like to give “some knowledge and responsibility” before they purchase it, he said.

“This product can be used for many different things, including food services,” he said. “But you’re an adult and you know what you’re using it for.”

His store sells chargers — or small, individual propellant canisters — in boxes of 50 from brands such as Erotica and Whip-It! A metal rack along the back wall contains larger canisters from Space Gas, Euro Gas and Hippie Whippy.

Even as sales have risen, Manibusan said he’s been concerned by the sight of spent chargers strewn across playgrounds and parks in Aurora. His shop only sells to customers 21 and up, and he said he believes kids shouldn’t go anywhere near it.

Aurora city officials have said it’s an under-regulated market that overlaps with the sale of illegal drugs and paraphernalia available at gas stations. As a result, they will be voting this month on whether to ban them and step up enforcement.

In comparison to the rise of nitrous, the use of e-cigarettes and vaping devices among middle and high school students declined between 2023 and 2024 by 5.9% — or about 1.63 million students, according to the FDA — from a high of 7.7% (or 2.13 million). Researchers credited public awareness campaigns for that, and have expressed support for new ones that target teenage nitrous abuse.

At the state level, nitrous abuse is hard to track.

“This is mainly because it’s quick-acting and often used as a supplemental drug alongside other substances, making it difficult to pinpoint,” said Denver Health spokeswoman Deydra Bringas. She said ER-visit data for nitrous side effects is insufficient enough to share.

However, Rocky Mountain Poison & Drug Safety director Banjeri said anecdotal data and national reports show that the 3 to 5 calls her office receives each year “very much underestimates what’s really going on, because it’s respiratory and not something you treat over the phone.”

Parking lot security at the city-owned Red Rocks is handled by park service employees and off-duty cops, and paid for by venue owner Denver Arts & Venues. It is not the responsibility of concert promoters, said Denver Arts & Venues spokesman Brian Kitts. Security officials at Red Rocks can occasionally be seen patrolling the parking lots before, during and after shows. But they hardly ever bust illegal drug users and vendors, concertgoers told The Denver Post.

There are no reports or citations for nitrous use or sales from the Red Rocks parking lots this year, according to the Denver Police Department. However, at Phish’s July 3-5 concerts at the University of Colorado’s Folsom Field, security officials seized 61 nitrous oxide tanks and issued one citation related to nitrous oxide throughout the three-day series, said CU’s Director of Issues Management and spokesperson Nicole Mueksch.

The nitrous tanks were confiscated under a city ordinance stating that no one can knowingly inhale fumes for the purpose of causing “euphoria, excitement, exhilaration, stupefaction, or dulled senses of the nervous system” — nor can they possess or buy “toxic vapors” for that reason.

The spike in abuse is having a corrosive effect on the jam-band scene, said Khalil Simon, leader of the Denver street-music group Brothers of Brass, which often plays in parking lots before concerts.

“When you have 20 tanks going off all around you, it’s one of the few things that can cut through a 9-piece brass band with horns and drums,” said Simon, the band’s tuba player, who largely quit playing Phish shows due to the “out of control” takeover of nitrous vendors.

“You’re also trying to play for tips and everyone’s spending all the cash in their pockets on these balloons,” he said.

Simon posted on Facebook last year that Brothers of Brass were done with Phish, despite eight years of well-received shows outside its concerts. The group began following Phish around the country in 2016 — starting at the band’s annual Dick’s Sporting Goods Park run in Commerce City — and busking in the ad-hoc markets that popped up before shows (Shakedown Street, as they’re generally known, after the Grateful Dead song).

In some cases, his band would collect thousands of dollars in tips in a couple of hours, whether outside Phish weekends in New York City or along the Front Range. Over the past two years, however, nitrous vendors have muscled out nearly every other aspect of that scene, he said.

“This is one of those cases where drug dealers win,” he told The Denver Post. “They’re being persistent for years and years and multiplying, and cops don’t do anything.”

Commerce City Police, who handled security outside Phish’s Dick’s Sporting Goods Park shows, did not respond to requests for comment.

“I know Colorado’s drug-friendly, but I didn’t know it would blow up like this. Kids are losing their brain cells now that it’s been rebranded,” Simon said. “It’s way worse than weed or anything like that. It straight up makes you dumb.”

“There is also the issue of long-term effects,” Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Safety’s Banerji said. “Chronic use can result in anemias and effects to the brain, blood, spinal cord and nervous system. It’s not harmless. But people still don’t think of it in terms of chronic toxicity.”

She encouraged anyone with questions about nitrous oxide to call Rocky Mountain Poison & Drug Safety’s free, 24/7 anonymous hotline at 866-871-4980 or learn more at rmpds.org.

Most users dismissed side effects and medical concerns when asked about nitrous outside Red Rocks. Some were planning on bringing drugs such as psilocybin mushrooms and cannabis inside with them for the show, but leaving the “dumb fun” of whippets in the parking lot.

“We do it for the ‘whomp whomp,'” said a woman holding a translucent balloon that had been filled by a golden-colored tank in her trunk. She and her friends, who described the experience as blissfully disconnected, declined to give their names due to professional concerns. Among them was a government employee, a scientist, and a business owner, they said.

“Our perspective is that there’s no safe way to use it recreationally,” Banjeri said. “At the very least, you should have your friends around you, so they can help if something happens.”

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