While its euphoric side effects have long been known, the rise of vaping has helped create a perfect delivery vehicle for the gas – and a perfect recipe for an addiction, experts warn.
Nitrous oxide, once dismissed as harmless “laughing gas,” is fueling a dangerous addiction crisis, experts warn. The rise of vaping has made the drug—used recreationally for its euphoric effects—easier to abuse, with poison centers reporting a 58% spike in intentional exposures in the U.S. (2023-2024). The tragic case of Meg Caldwell, a Florida horse rider who died last November after years of escalating use, highlights its lethal potential.
“She didn’t think it would hurt her because she was buying it legally in smoke shops,” her sister Kathleen Dial told the BBC. Despite temporary paralysis and incontinence from overdoses, Caldwell’s addiction spiraled—“it started running her life.” She would inhale it in parking lots, sometimes spending hundreds daily before her death outside a vape shop.