The UK government is moving to ban the sale of nitrous oxide to clubbers and partygoers because of its dangers, but some users are protesting that the move is unfair. Exactly how dangerous is the gas?
Empty silver canisters of nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, have become a common sight outside clubs across the UK. Last July, more than 1,200 were reported to have been confiscated on just one Saturday night in London's Shoreditch.
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The anaesthetic gas is still used for pain relief during dentistry and childbirth but outside of that legitimate arena there has been a legal grey area for years. It's already illegal to sell to under-18s if there is a risk they will inhale it. But it remains easy for adults to buy.
Mainstream online vendors advertise the product, although usually indicating that it is to be used for the production of whipped cream. The product reviews usually suggest otherwise. One reads:
"Quality product, I ordered on a Friday and chargers were meant to come on Tuesday but arrived on the next day, good laugh with mates at a festival… er, I mean in the kitchen whipping cream."
Now the UK government plans to include nitrous oxide in a bill which will make it illegal to sell "psychoactive substances". Possession - with no intent to supply - and use will remain legal.
"Young people who take these substances are taking exceptional risks with their health and those who profit from their sale have a complete disregard for the potential consequences,"
said crime and policing minister Mike Penning.
But some argue that the ban is unfair. On Saturday, protesters from the Psychedelic Society pressure group will inhale laughing gas outside Parliament.
"It's not the business of government to tell people what they can and can't use,"
says director Stephen Reid.
"Nitrous oxide has been used for literally hundreds of years in this country without any problems."
It was discovered in 1772 by British scientist Joseph Priestley and within 30 years the chemist Humphry Davy was using it recreationally.
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Davy began inviting his friends round to inhale the gas from oiled silk bags and in doing so started a craze.
"The nitrous oxyd [sic], or laughing gas was inhaled by a gentleman who after laughing sprung up in the air to the astonishing height of six feet from the ground,"
wrote a correspondent in the Times in 1819, describing a popular stage show.
"You kind of feel that you're in a trance,"
says Reid.
"Some people get a sensation that they're falling or being lifted up into the sky perhaps. When you start coming out of this trance-like state you often get these giggles."
Recreational use of nitrous oxide has not always been common.
The controversial 1995 movie Kids shows one of the characters using it, but the popularity of the gas has increased dramatically in the past five years, says Stephen Ream, a director of drug charity Re-Solv.
Laughing gas and the philosopher
"[The 19th Century US philosopher] William James describes a man who got the experience from laughing-gas; whenever he was under its influence, he knew the secret of the universe, but when he came to, he had forgotten it. At last, with immense effort, he wrote down the secret before the vision had faded. When completely recovered, he rushed to see what he had written. It was: A smell of petroleum prevails throughout."
From A History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell (1945)
Laughing gas is now the fourth most used drug in the UK, according to the Global Drug Survey 2015.
In the past year, only people in the Netherlands used it more.
In 2013-14, Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.some 470,000 people took nitrous oxide, according to the Home Office.
It's especially popular with young people, with 7.6% of 16 to 24-year-olds taking it that same year. This was a greater proportion than took cocaine (4.2%) and ecstasy (3.9%).
There have, however, been 17 fatalities related to the use of laughing gas in the UK between 2006 and 2012, according to research.
The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) says that there was one death in 2011 and five in 2010. The US records about 15 deaths a year.
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In 2007, a 23-year-old man was found dead at his home in Birmingham next to a large cylinder of nitrous oxide.
A plastic bag was also found nearby, it was reported. The pathologist concluded that he had died from asphyxia due to inhaling the gas.
Others have also taken severe risks by using medical tanks and masks. But the majority of people who consume the gas, according to research, do so using balloons.
Most of the deaths in the UK have been asphyxiations窒息 involving plastic bags, says Dr John Ramsey, a toxicologist who was part of the team that helped compile the death data, using coroner's reports at St George's, University of London.
As well as the danger of asphyxiation, when the gas comes out of a canister it can be so cold it can burn. A cold shock at the back of the throat can affect the vagus nerve, causing the heart rate to suddenly slow.
Researchers say that the number of people who die from inhaling nitrous oxide is actually low when compared with the number of people taking the drug every year.
"There's been something like 40-odd deaths in the last 40 years. They're really rare,"
says Dr Adam Winstock, consultant psychiatrist and founder of the Global Drug Survey.
Death rates can be difficult to compare but in 2011 nitrous oxide was linked to one death - this was fewer than heroin and morphine (2,652), cocaine (112), ecstasy (13) and cannabis (seven).
The number of laughing gas deaths is fewer than those killed each year by helium, says David Nutt, professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College, London and former UK government drugs adviser. He argues that laughing gas is actually "exceptionally safe" considering the numbers who use it.
"I mean you can kill yourself obviously. If you breathe nothing but nitrous for 10 minutes you will die, but I don't think there's any evidence that nitrous kills people if you use it recreationally."
The risk of brain damage just isn't worth it as far as I can tellDr Anna-Maria Rollin, Royal College of Anaesthetists
But to some critics, the dangers are clear. Breathing in high concentrations of laughing gas can quickly reduce the blood's level of oxygen.
On a night out, in an uncontrolled environment, there is a risk that people can start feeling sleepy as they inhale the gas and pass out, says Dr Anna-Maria Rollin from the Royal College of Anaesthetists.
"The risk of brain damage just isn't worth it as far as I can tell."
In March, doctors from the Royal Alexandra Children's Hospital in Brighton warned against using laughing gas after a teenager arrived in their emergency unit with breathing difficulties. She had inhaled a considerable quantity at a festival and air had leaked into the space between her lung and chest wall which can cause the lung to collapse.
Heavy use can also deplete the body's stores of vitamin B12, causing anaemia and nerve damage. The Global Drugs Survey found that about 4% of users had symptoms such as numbness, tingling and shooting pains in the limbs.
People often use nitrous oxide in conjunction with cannabis or alcohol, explains Shirley Cramer, chief executive of the Royal Society for Public Health. That too is a concern, she says, as it increases the risks involved.
But in general, most users are not consuming laughing gas heavily and at that level it is
"a remarkably safe drug",
says Winstock,
"unless you are drunk or high on other drugs and you happen to do it in the middle of the road and you fall over".
"But it's important to say that it is not harmless,"
says Dr Owen Bowden-Jones, consultant psychiatrist and founder of the Club Drug clinic.
"Some of those risks are to do with the way it's taken and some of it, as with most drugs, is with how frequently you use it."
Perhaps the greatest danger is that more young people end up inhaling gases that they think are nitrous oxide but are in fact a dangerous substitute.
When 17-year-old Joseph Benett died in 2012, it was reported as a death from laughing gas. He had in fact consumed a cocktail of gases including butane and pentane from a can brought back from Israel.
"What we worry about is that people start to think that inhaling gas for a laugh is an OK thing to do,"
says Ream. It's certainly not right or normal to inhale a gas for intoxication, he says.
2014年夏、英国の地方自治体協議会(Local Government Association)は警告情報を出し、笑気ガスの乱用拡大への対策を求めてきました。
この夏のVフェスティバルでは、最近導入された公共の場の安全性確保命令(Public Space Protection Order)によって、警察が「笑気ガス」などの危険ドラッグの取締まりに当たりましたが、今日のBBCニュースによると、逮捕者は63人、警察が押収した「笑気ガス」の容器は17,000本を超えたといいます(下記参照①)。
Samples of the compounds listed in the table will be circulated during lecture. Smell each sample and record a brief description of your impression of its odor in the "Smells like" column. At the end of lecture, the name of the odor of each compound will be revealed. Record the name in the last column and compare it to your impressions.
Keita Kuroiwa*, Tsubasa Arie, Shinichi Sakurai, Shinya Hayami, Timothy J. Deming , "Supramolecular control of reverse spin transitions in cobalt(II) terpyridine complexes with diblock copolypeptide amphiphiles",
J. Mater. Chem. C 2015, 3 (30), 7779-7783.
Keita Kuroiwa*, Yoshitaka Masaki, Yuko Koga, Timothy J. Deming "Self-assembly of Discrete Metal Complexes in Aqueous Solution via Block Copolypeptide Amphiphiles"
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2013, 14 (1), 2022-2035.
There are numerous well-trodden ways for modern citizens to be distracted from their stress by external measures.
Alcohol, chemical drugs, cigarettes, marijuana, the Internet, TV shows, video games, and many other legal and illegal forms of diversion can alleviate stress – if not only temporarily.
Many of these occupations cause heavy addiction, though. The strongest instances of addiction occur when individuals intake illegal drugs.
Almost all of them are dangerous for a human’s physical and psychological health. Back in the 1990’s, cocaine was treated as the most dangerous drug, but recent studies reveal a surprising fact that nicotine can be considered the most addictive drug of the 21st century (Lawrence, 2002).
A drug, in a general sense, is a substance with certain chemical properties that has the ability to disrupt the functions of an individual’s body. It can be used for treatment, diagnosis or for recreational activities. Some kinds of drugs can also affect the nervous system of a person’s body and prove to be quite dangerous; the most hazardous are those which are listed under the category of psychoactive drugs. These are substances with chemical properties that affect or modify brain functions and result in changed behavior, frame of mind, and deviations in thought processes. One of such psychoactive drugs is the well-known and legal nicotine.
People can take in nicotine from many natural sources, mostly in doses which are not malignant for human health. However, consuming nicotine through cigarettes, cigars, or by smoking pipes is quite different. Doctor Richard Lawrence observed that numerous harmful effects of nicotine were consumed by farmers through tobacco leaves (Lawrence, 2002). Nicotine can be found in many food products, and in small amounts it does not cause harm; however, despite being legal, nicotine is extremely addictive, and leads to strong psychological and physical addiction (Shaw, 2001). Research on popular addictive drugs also place nicotine at the top of the most dangerous drugs list. Nicotine is on the same alignment with the harmful effects caused by cocaine, morphine or alcohol (Michaelshouse.com). The most common symptoms attributed to nicotine’s abuse are anxiety, sleeping disorders, a lack of concentration, irritability and severe headaches. Pure nicotine is extremely poisonous, and may even cause death.
One positive factor is that nicotine addiction can be effectively treated. There are many means used in replacement therapy to treat this addiction. Among the most popular ways are nicotine-containing chewing gum, inhalers, nasal sprays, and skin patches. It is extremely important for nicotine addicts who want to achieve long-lasting soberness to join treatment programs, otherwise the ailment may return and will cause even more harm to patients.
Among many drugs that are present on the market today, nicotine may be called the most dangerous one to human beings. Due to the fact that nicotine is legal: cigarettes and other products which contain nicotine can be easily purchased at almost every public market.
Nicotine as a psychoactive drug forms a strong addictiveness, and has such negative effects on its user as anxiety, sleeping disorders, a lack of concentration, irritability and severe headaches. Nowadays, one of the most effective ways to treat addiction to nicotine is replacement therapy, when a patient consumes products with low levels of nicotine in them, such as special chewing gums, nasal sprays, inhalators, or skin patches.
References
F. Shaw, B. (2001). Addiction and Recovery For Dummies. John Wiley & Sons.
Lawrence Miller, R. (2002). The Encyclopedia of Addictive Drugs. United States of America: Greenwood Publishing Group, pp. 18-19.
Michaelshouse.com (2011). A Surprising Look at the Most Addictive Drugs in the World | Michael’s House. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.michaelshouse.com/drug-addiction/most-addictive-drugs-world/ [Accessed: 15 Feb 2013].
Boron Neutron Capture Therapy of Cancer (BNCT) is a targeted, tumor cell-selective binary radiation therapy based upon the very facile capture of a thermal neutron by the 10B nucleus. This nuclear fission reaction produces both 4He and 7Li+ nuclei along with about 2.4 MeV of kinetic energy and weak & gamma-radiation.
Since the energetic and cytotoxic product ions travel only about one cell diameter in tissue one may specify the cell type to be destroyed by placing innocent 10B nuclei on or within only the doomed cells.
ボロン試薬は複核のものか?
pnas.org/content/110/16/6512.abstract
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中性子線、半数以上でがん消す…「頭頸部」末期
2015年10月28日 18時49分 読売
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.がん細胞だけを狙い撃ちする放射線治療「ホウ素中性子捕捉療法(BNCT)」を、顔や首にできる「頭頸部がん」の末期患者37人に行ったところ、半数以上でがんを消すことに成功したとの臨床研究結果を、大阪大や京都大などのチームがまとめた。
最初から大量に酸素ガスがあったとなると、地球上の植物などの光合成による酸素の生成起源も従来説は薄れるのか?Origin of the Earth's Atmosphereの考え方も??
indiana.edu/~bauerweb/origin
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Stunned scientists announced Wednesday the unexpected discovery of large quantities of oxygen on a comet which streaked past the Sun in August with a European spacecraft in tow.
The find came as a big surprise, and challenges mainstream theories on the formation of our Solar System, said scientist Andre Bieler of the University of Michigan.
Measurements suggested that oxygen molecules in the comet's gassy halo must have existed before or at its formation, he told journalists.
This may have implications for mankind's understanding of the chemistry involved in the formation of the Solar System some 4.6 billion years ago.
We believe this oxygen is primordial,原始時代からある which means it is older than our Solar System, said Bieler.
Scientists had previously ruled out the presence of oxygen (O2) on comets such as 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the subject of intensive prodding and sniffing by a European robot probe.
As O2 mixes so easily with other elements, we never thought that oxygen could 'survive' for billions of years in a pristine state, said Kathrin Altwegg of the University of Bern, who co-authored a study in the journal Nature.
This evidence of oxygen as an ancient substance will likely discredit some theoretical models of the formation of our Solar System, she said.
The comet is being tracked on its deep space journey around the Sun by the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft.
The historic mission seeks to unlock the mystery of the origins of life on Earth.
Scientists believe that comets seeded early Earth with some of the ingredients for life.