According to reports, the recreational use of nitrous oxide, also referred to as laughing gas, is growing across the nation.
Ghana’s Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) claims that a large number of young people abuse the substance as a result of its accessibility, affordability, ease of use, and false perception of safety.
Several employ covert methods, such as releasing the gas into unique balloons before consuming it.
Because it is believed to provide feelings of pleasure, relaxation, and disconnection from reality, the colourless substance has become rather popular in nightclubs, bars, and other public places.
Many valid medical, industrial, and commercial uses exist for nitrous oxide.
It is frequently used to sedate people during simple medical procedures by dentists and other medical professionals.
In the automobile industry, it is used to improve engine performance, and it can also be used as a food additive while whipping cream.
Nitrous oxide was in fact created with benign intentions until certain people discovered the devil in it.
That is the latest drug trend among the youth population here in Ghana.
“It can’t be out of the market due to its licit uses so a lot of monitoring, supervision and alert have been put on its use,” the FDA’s Dr Agyekumwaa Boateng said.
A nightclub in the centre of Osu, Accra, was packed with people at 2:00 in the morning.
There are countless choices, and each person essentially picks their own poison of enjoyment. Laughing gas was undoubtedly an option for experienced users and experimenters.
The balloons have a range of costs. An online search turned up a vendor who sells in various flavours and varieties of nitrous oxide.
He sells both the “Fast Gas” and the strawberry flavour of gas in his store.
A canister of the Nitrous oxide costs GH¢700. But one can get a balloon for GH¢40 or GH¢50. The gas is then inhaled by discharging its cartridges into the balloon.
The Food and Drugs Authority says it is a worrying trend.
“Some of the short-term health are: you’d find that such people [who abuse the gas] would have low blood pressure. It causes anaemia and there is loss of consciousness. Prolong recreational use would cause neurological disorders, mental disorders, incontinence and others.
“There is a lot of debilitating effects if [Nitrous oxide] is used for recreational purposes,” Dr Agyekumwaa Boateng added.
She added that many young individuals develop addictions as a result of peer pressure and frequently just out of curiosity.
A man was observed inhaling the balloon and smoking a cigar in another club.
The FDA claims that it is working tirelessly to lessen the abuse of the gas.
“Apart from the aggressive public education we are embarking on nationwide, we are also doing monitoring in these nightclubs, pubs and public facilities to ensure that the owners – the responsibility is on the owners – to desist from using the [substance].”
With little or no regulation regulating its usage and distribution, it is possibly time for the relevant authorities to act because a stitch in time, they say, saves nine
