Are There Any Medical Reasons for Taking This Substance?
As an anesthetic, nitrous oxide has many legitimate uses. Its ability to reduce anxiety, restlessness, and fear makes it especially useful in the field of dentistry. Adults and children over the age of six have been shown to experience less discomfort and mental distress when given nitrous oxide during short but painful medical or dental procedures.
Scooby and Shaggy Rile Viewers
Nitrous oxide abuse became a hot topic in 2004, when recreational use of the gas showed up in a kids' film. In a one-minute-long scene from the PGrated Warner Bros. movie Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, one of the main characters, Shaggy, sniffs nitrous oxide from a whipped cream can and jokes about it. Seeing Shaggy do whippets is "supposed to make kids laugh," wrote Sue Marquette Poremba on the Preteenagers Today Web site. "It's supposed to be harmless fun. … That's the problem."
The scene in question begins with Shaggy and Scooby going to the kitchen. Shaggy opens the refrigerator and takes out a can of whipped cream. He shakes it up, sprays some cream into Scooby's mouth, and smiles broadly while Scooby's mouth fills up with the cream. Shaggy then takes a "hit" off the whipped cream canister. He breathes in the nitrous oxide without dispensing any cream, then hiccups. Shaggy then acts drunk and silly, saying that he needs to go outside to get some fresh air.
Concerned parents contacted the National Inhalation Prevention Coalition (NIPC) about the Scooby-Doo whippet spoof. Many were upset and believed that the film company was being insensitive to people who had lost loved ones due to inhalant abuse. One parent was especially concerned that the joke might go right over some adults' heads, yet lead children to copy the behavior. Harvey Weiss, the NIPC's executive director, brought attention to the issue in an "NIPC Inhalant Update Alert." Weiss urged Americans to view the scene from the film as a wakeup call, stating: "Our efforts should be to advance people's understanding about the dangers of inhalant use so they are recognized as a broad public health issue."
American obstetricians—physicians specializing in the birthing process—used nitrous oxide as a common pain management tool for women in labor until the early 1970s. By the early twenty-first century, however, the anesthetic had been replaced by newer drugs in the United States. However, a half-and-half mixture of nitrous oxide and oxygen was still being used in the United Kingdom to ease the pain of childbirth.
As an anesthetic, nitrous oxide has many legitimate uses. In dentistry, it is used to calm patients and lower their anxiety. © Royalty-Free/Corbis.
In a 2005 article for The Age, Julie Robotham reported on a group of Australian doctors who believed that nitrous oxide should no longer be used as a base for general anesthetics. According to an international study involving more than 2,000 patients, the use of nitrous oxide "doubles the rate of serious vomiting and pneumoniaA disease of the lung, usually brought on by infection, that causes inflammation of the lung tissue, fluid buildup inside the lungs, lowered oxygen levels in the blood, and difficulty breathing. after surgery," explained Robotham. Both of these side effects can result in a patient's death.
