Nitrous oxide commonly found in local smoke shops across northeast Wisconsin due to vague restrictions
WISCONSIN (WFRV) – At the Serenity House of Green Bay, a half-dozen recovering addicts gather to spend time as a newly formed family, their lives wrought with destruction and loss from drug use. Some have been there for two months, others for nearly a year.
No matter how long they have been there, each has been searching for peace from the demons that have gripped them for so long. And for many of them, their time of darkness in the throes of addiction began with abusing a drug called nitrous oxide.
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“When we couldn’t get somebody to buy us alcohol, that was the cheapest thing we could buy at the gas station. I know I would buy the Glade air fresheners for 99 cents,” Leon Hussin, a resident of the house for five months, said. “It gets you involved with the wrong crowd right away.”
On Hussin’s left sits Anthony Boyd, a resident at the house for seven months, who has also abused the chemical, which blocks blood flow to the brain.
“As an adolescent, I did it with air duster and glade. It’s not controlled,” he said. “It should be illegal.”
Nitrous oxide has hit Boyd harder than most people.
“One was my uncle, and one was my cousin. I’ve used it with both of them, and they are now deceased,” he said. “They had aneurysms, and they both died. They were declared brain dead from it.”
Those deaths led Boyd to get sober.
“I stopped doing it because I did not like the way it made me feel, and I did not want that to happen to me,” he said.
It is a drug that fuels America’s addiction crisis, in which someone dies of an overdose every five minutes, according to the American Medical Association. The National Institute of Health reports that 16% of Americans say they have abused nitrous oxide.
For former abusers of the substance, they say that it can lead to more potent drugs.
“It’s a gateway drug,” Boyd said. “They like the way that makes them feel and then they try other things.”
“One drug just ain’t enough. You build a tolerance on it, and then you find the biggest next one,” Hussin said. “It doesn’t seem like it’s a big thing in our communities, but it is happening, especially with the younger generation.”
The drug is an extremely dangerous drug on its own. As Boyd reflects on his family members, David Goins recounts his time getting caught up in the wrong crowd and will never forget what he saw.
“I’ve seen people go into full-on seizures, even comas. I know people who have used it for periods of time and then suffered from full-on body tremors. It’s a very dangerous drug,” Goins said. “I definitely don’t think it should be sold commercially like it is.”
Mark Stephens, a clinical substance abuse counselor at Libertas Green Bay, has spent decades trying to help addicts recover and turn the page to a fresh chapter in their lives. He has also seen how nitrous oxide has ravaged bodies by depriving the brain of oxygen and listed a long line of health risks the drug poses.
“Sudden death, also central nervous system damage. Neurological deficits with long-term chronic use can reveal cognitive deficits along with neuromuscular problems,” Stephens said. “Short-term use, confusion, sometimes unsteadiness of gate, changes in behavior.”
He has seen patients as young as preteens abusing the substance and wants people to know that besides sudden death, there are other health effects that can stem from the drug after someone gets hooked.
“I think long-term effects could be considered early dementia, with long-term, chronic use,” he said. “I’ve seen very early onset, even in early 20s and 30s, of cognitive delays that would require institutionalization.”
The only reason that nitrous oxide is commercially sold is for use in the culinary setting, typically for whipping cream purposes. Selling it in local smoke and vape shops has caught on, as we were able to determine the number of stores selling it in the Green Bay and Fox Valley areas.
The only one that agreed to talk to us was Dave’z Smoke N Vape which recently opened in Green Bay.
“We actually just sell them for whipped cream purposes. We don’t sell them for the purpose of smoking them or inhaling them,” store owner Daifalla Ahmed said. “If any customer comes in here or they say they’re going to inhale it, they have to exit my store. If that’s what I hear from them, then I cannot sell it to them ever again.”
Wisconsin law states that “Nitrous oxide cartridges are to be used only for purposes of preparing food. Nitrous oxide cartridges may not be sold to persons under the age of 21. Do not inhale the contents of this cartridge.”
In addition, someone can only buy one canister of nitrous oxide in a 48-hour window. Ahmed explained that he cards all customers and will be able to keep track of them through credit card records and receipts.
“Their card, I can run their receipt and see the last time they bought it and I can monitor it that way,” he said. “I work seven days a week, fourteen hours, from open to close.”
Ahmed says that his long work hours and being the only employee at his store help him keep track of customer purchases. While that system helps him keep track of purchases at his store, it is unclear how someone would be prevented from purchasing nitrous oxide at multiple stores.
“Specifically selling nitrous, especially for culinary purposes at a smoke shop, that makes no sense to me,” Officer Joe Benoit, Neenah Police Department community policing coordinator, said. “That’s something I’d like to look further into. If I’m in the business of using nitrous for culinary purposes, I wouldn’t be going to a smoke shop to make that purchase.”
Even bake shops that used to sell the chemical no longer do so as a result of its abuse.
“Over the last few years, we’ve realized it’s nothing we can keep on the shelves,” Creative Cake Supplies owner Julie Sizemore said. “We’re all older ladies here and didn’t know what the big interest was. But it seemed like all of a sudden when one person found out that we had it, then we became very popular.”
Sizemore said that a ban on the chemical would not impact the baking industry, and considering the level of illegal use of the drug that she suspected, she thinks that would be the right thing to do.
“If you’re not using them on a whipped cream canister, if you’re not making coffee or selling pie, then you have no reason to sell them in your business,” she said. “I can’t imagine that it would affect people that much because you can whip cream without a dispenser. You just need a mixing bowl and a whisk.”
The shift manager at Green Bay’s Cold Stone Creamery, Eva Delaney, found that with a tablespoon of patience, she actually prefers not to use nitrous oxide, which the store does not allow. She says that any dessert creator could learn to do without
“At the start, it was a little tricky to get the whip in good shape for the customers on the shakes, but now I’ve found that I prefer it with this,” Delaney said. “It would be a pretty easy fix. It doesn’t have any impact on us to have it in a bag. It actually makes it easier to squeeze it out into the desserts. It takes a little bit of practice, but it’s easy to get.”
Officer Benoit says that this is not just a matter of health risks for abusers of nitrous oxide, but it is also a public safety concern.
“People would inhale nitrous as they’re driving, for example, which causes people to pass out and can cause crashes and injuries and fatalities even,” he said. “An open container of nitrous is the same violation as an open container of alcohol, according to Wisconsin statute.”
In September, a Missouri jury awarded $745 million to the parents of a woman killed by a driver under the influence of nitrous oxide. United Brands Products Design Development, the same company that manufactures the nitrous oxide in Ahmed’s store, was found 70% at fault by the jury.
Officer Benoit says that if enough people wanted to impose a ban on nitrous oxide, the fastest way to do so would be through city ordinances, as he pointed out several years ago in Neenah to ban the sales of synthetic marijuana.
“Certainly that could be something that could be looked at at a local level through city ordinances, that’s something that city council would have to look at,” Officer Benoit said. “If the people want ordinances like that in their local community, they can petition their local government. If it’s something that needs to be done, it could happen relatively quickly.”
Adam Brouchoud, founder and co-owner of the Serenity House of Green Bay, says that more needs to be done to protect addicts and those vulnerable to the powerful demons that substance abuse brings to our society.
“It started with my own drug addiction that I had. Everyone thought that I was choosing to go out and purchase these drugs. But it was no longer a choice for me at the end of the day,” he said. “Someone gave me the opportunity when society wrote me off.”
“So being able to come back here and give someone else the opportunity I was given, that’s everything.”
The Green Bay and Appleton Police Departments, Food and Drug Administration, and United Brands Products Design Development declined to be interviewed for the story.
