There are times when you just know it is an article from the Babylon Bee…
And then you find out it’s not…
Yep, that nanny state of the east has decided that nobody under 21 is allowed to purchase whipped cream, because some of them might be inhaling nitrous oxide.
The law, which went into effect in November 2021, is meant to prevent teenagers from using canned whipped cream to inhale nitrous oxide, otherwise known as “whippets.”
“Inhalants are invisible, volatile substances found in common household products that produce chemical vapors that are inhaled to induce psychoactive or mind-altering effects,” according to a US Drug Enforcement Administration factsheet.
Approximately 1 in 5 young people have used inhalants like whippits by the time they reach eighth grade, the DEA said. Abusing inhalants can “cause damage to the parts of the brain that control thinking, moving, vision, and hearing.”
I just can’t. The fear mongering from conflating nitrous oxide and other inhalants is pitiful.
Laughing gas, they are stopping adults from buying whipped cream because they might inhale some laughing gas.
Another fine example of democrats “thinking”…. Up here its harder to buy cold medicine ( meth ingredients, supposedly) than it is to get a prescription for opioids. They made it illegal for anyone under 21 to buy cigarettes then print up flyers about how “every month 1200 young Mainers take up smoking”. You CANT make this shiite up
Not just conflating laughing gas with more dangerous inhalants, but conflating canned whipped-cream-like dessert topping products with whippits, which are straight-up nitrous oxide sans cream.
I rather doubt one could inhale enough N2O from canned whipped cream to get even a slight case of the giggles, though one’s friends would undoubtedly be ROFL at the attempt.
@Eric Wilner: I’ve seen it done when I worked for Friendly a ,million years ago. As a “control enthusiast”, I wouldn’t try it “in public” (or as public as a closed restaurant would be). The people who tried claimed a high.
Hm. Didn’t people claim to get high smoking banana peels, some decades ago?
And I’ve been in a roomful of people who all (including me) got amusingly drunk despite a complete lack of intoxifying beverages on offer. (Came time to go home, we sobered right up, no problem. I react badly to actual alcohol, even in small doses. Not Minbari-grade badly, but no fun at all.)
A large part of “getting slightly high” is the user’s expectations.
But… science project? I wonder how much N2O escapes from canned whipped cream, and how to measure it. Maybe dispense into a bag, sans air, allow to settle, and see how much gas volume is in the bag after a while, then compare to the amount expected to have an intoxicating effect – assuming that all the gas in the product is in fact N2O, which seems a reasonable assumption.
Not making a grocery-store run just now. I’m reminded, though, of an idea I had many years ago for a flame weapon for a tabletop battlebot, using N2O from one of those little capsules to get a decently hot flame out of any handy liquid fuel. I wasn’t sure whether that would be within the rules even back then….
But, they can purchase the charging canisters directly from Amazon. There is even a brand called “Whip It” 100 canisters for about $65.
.
This is exactly the meaningless, futile gesture you can expect from the children running things these days.
Eh, they don’t need the calories r/t obesity. 8>)