Recreational use of nitrous oxide

Recreational use of nitrous oxide is the inhalation of nitrous oxide gas for its euphoriant effects.

The gas is sometimes called hippie crack, referring to the typical users and its use as a drug, like "crack" cocaine.

Nitrous oxide is a dissociative inhalant that can cause analgesia, depersonalisation, derealisation, dizziness, euphoria, and some sound distortion (flanging). In some cases, it may cause slight hallucinations and have a mild aphrodisiac effect.

Research has also found that it increases suggestibility and imagination.

Inhalation of nitrous oxide for recreational use, with the purpose of causing euphoria and/or slight hallucinations, began as a phenomenon for the British upper class in 1799, known as "laughing gas parties".

During the 19th century, William James and many contemporaries found that inhalation of nitrous oxide resulted in a powerful spiritual and mystical experience for the user. James claimed to experience the fusing of dichotomies into a unity and a revelation of ultimate truth during the inhalation of nitrous oxide. Memory of this experience, however, quickly faded and any attempt to communicate was difficult at best. James described a man who, when under the influence of the gas, claimed to know the secret of the universe.

Until at least 1863, a low availability of equipment to produce the gas, combined with a low usage of the gas for medical purposes, meant it was a relatively rare phenomenon that mainly happened among students at medical universities. When equipment became more widely available for dentistry and hospitals, most countries also restricted the legal access to buy pure nitrous oxide gas cylinders to those sectors. Even so, its use in parties continued, with gas provided by medical professionals or restaurant workers, and by other legal or illegal sources.

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