In the last issue of “Special Envoy” devoted to laughing gas, Elise Lucet and her team of journalists met a young woman of thirty, hospitalized for several days after consuming this product.
Entitled “When laughing gas no longer makes you laugh”, the last issue of “Special Envoy” looks at this new drug that is open access and very popular with young people. As part of the show, a 30-year-old woman testifies anonymously about the after-effects of laughing gas. Available in free access, the laughing gas cylinders are made from nitrous oxide. It is used, initially, to inflate balloons or to make whipped cream. But taken directly by the respiratory route, it has very strong effects on the body and it is popular with young adults, especially in the evenings.
The young woman, taken care of by the hospital service of Saint-Denis, tells the symptoms from which she suffers after consuming this gas: “I am frozen. (…) I can no longer walk. I no longer feel anything. I can feel my head when I touch it, but my body at the bottom, nothing. Even at the level of my pelvis, nothing”. If the young woman is worried, the head of the neurology pole of the Saint-Denis hospital center, for his part, remains confident. “We still need to see the result of the entire lumbar puncture, he explains, but otherwise, the MRI was quite satisfactory “.
Hillarant gas, a juicy trade for an easily accessible product
What “Special Envoy” also shows in this issue is the juicy laughing gas business. Accessible via social networks, deliveries are made in 30 minutes, every day of the week. Some dealers sell the cylinder for 25 euros, the survey tells us.
One of the journalists even pretends to be a customer in order to ask questions of the delivery man, with whom he contacts to buy bottles. The latter tells him that the laughing gas trade would bring him 4000 euros per day. The show also tells us that the neurology services of Paris public hospitals are receiving more and more cases related to laughing gas and that, for three weeks, there has been at least one every 7 days. Such a survey reminds us again and again that it is necessary to break the taboo that hangs over drugs in general, in order to better supervise and make young people aware of their consumption.