Laughing gas was the lockdown high of choice for many young people. Now empty canisters are everywhere, and dealers are hitting the streets with card readers. Will a government crackdown burst the balloon?
Barry Smith spent this summer clinking as he walked. The 26-year-old painter from Devon sold nitrous oxide at four UK festivals. Before each event, he loaded his van with 20 boxes containing 480 canisters, bought online at 25p each, and hundreds of balloons. (This is considered small-time in the nitrous oxide racket.) His pricing is flexible: a balloon base rate of two for £5 (a markup of 1,000%) or five for £10. But prices can plummet to zero for mates or skyrocket for strangers once he’s running low.
Standing largely in one spot, holding a nitrous dispenser, or “cracker”, that resembles a coffee flask, Barry (not his real name) handed balloon after balloon to revellers attracted by a high-pitched hissing noise. He used the cracker to dispense the gas into latex balloons, while his girlfriend handled the payments, either in cash or by using a card machine borrowed from a friend’s ice-cream company. “It’s like a family business,” he jokes. Trade is brisk. “People just swarm at you – everyone’s gagging for it.”
