The nitrous oxide (N2O) is a gas with anesthetic, analgesic and dissociative properties, colorless, almost odorless and with a slight sweet taste. Nowadays, it has become a fashionable drug in Ibiza, where it is easy to obtain and where its remains are often found in the streets: balloons and bottles. It is known as ‘laughing gas‘. It is a substance of high availability and low price, emphasizes the Ministry of Health.
Although there is a social perception of safety in its consumption, the consequences of consuming it can be serious.
How is the ‘laughing gas’?
It comes in liquid or compressed gas form. Generally, a mixture of 65% oxygen and 35% nitrous oxide is inhaled. Its effects appear quickly and also disappear in a short period of time.
History
Nitrous oxide is a gas that has been around since its discovery in the 18th century. Its consumption dates back more than 200 years.
1798: Sir Humphry Davy detected the hilarious effects and the analgesic and sedative effect that it was capable of calming a dental pain he was suffering. Its first uses were exclusively ludic due to its capacity to induce laughter, in private parties and social events. 1844: Horace Wells witnessed a demonstration of the gas, seeing how another user in a state of euphoria accidentally injured himself without noticing any pain until the end of the effect of the gas. Given the benefits for dentistry, he recommended its use. In recent years, there has been a revival of interest in its use at parties, raves and music clubs. Laughing gas is included among the so-called “club drugs”, chemicals that are consumed recreationally. 
A boy takes laughing gas in a balloon / LaSexta
how is nitrous oxide consumed?
The route of administration is inhaled through balloons that function as a reservoir to inhale it, so that it reaches the brain through the respiratory tract, acting as a central nervous system depressant.
This substance is both a drug of abuse and a drug with specific therapeutic indications. Thus, anesthetic gases for medical use include ether, chloroform, halothane and nitrous oxide. Nitrous oxide is a colorless gas commonly used for sedation and pain relief. This gas, because of its anesthetic properties, has been used extensively in dentistry as an adjuvant for sedation and maintenance of anesthesia.
Other uses:
Industrial food additive. Used as a propellant in cans and whipped cream dispensers. Other household and commercial products containing gases include butane lighters, propane gas tanks, and refrigerants.
what are the effects?
Its consumption is followed by the appearance of euphoria, a feeling of well-being and laughter, which, together with the rapidity with which they are reversed, caused it to be used in traveling shows and to be known as “laughing gas”.
Being a very soluble and rapidly absorbed gas, it diffuses through the central nervous system immediately after inhalation, producing the effects in less than a minute and with a maximum duration of 15 to 45 minutes, depending on the inhaled dose.
Risks due to its consumption
The Spanish Agency of Medicines and Health Products (AEMPS) estimates that its non-medical use represents a health risk. However, nitrous oxide carries associated risks, such as the risk of asphyxiation, due to its nature as a compressed liquefied gas.
Functioning as a dissociative anesthetic, it can also cause hallucinations, uncontrolled vocalization, altered perception, spatial and temporal disorientation, or reduced sensitivity to pain.
It can lead to serious health problems, especially by leading to oxygen deprivation to the brain, which can involve anything from fainting to respiratory arrest.
Continued use can damage the spinal cord and even lead to death. If this substance is used for several days in a row or intensively in one session, vitamin B12 levels in the body decrease; a vitamin B12 deficiency would result in neurological and cognitive problems.
In large quantities it can lead to death by asphyxiation. Other effects are convulsions, arrhythmias, respiratory or cardiac arrest, especially in people with epilepsy or a cardiovascular history.
There are some problems, linked to the form of consumption and the frequency and intensity with which it is carried out: burns in the mouth and upper respiratory tract due to inhalation of the gas directly from the cartridges, as it comes out of the cartridges at a very low temperature.