Subject: Re: White or Black
From: rslugg@pelham.med.unc.edu (Robert Slugg)
Date: 1991-02-18, 09:05
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks
Reply-to: rslugg@uncmed.med.unc.edu (Robert Slugg)

In article <13730@vpk2.UUCP> sturner@attcan.UUCP (Samantha Turner) writes:
>> >> The guy playing Wyndy is ok, but what if...they could get Dennis Hopper to 
>> >> reprise his role in "Blue Velvet"?  ( Does anybody know what that stuff in
>> >> his inhaler was?  I figured it must be either amyll nitrate or nitrous oxide.
>> >> Where can I get some? )
> >
> >        Nitrous oxide makes your voice really deep, so it couldn't have been         that.  You can get NO2 at any department store.  I don't know what
> >        section its in, but its used for whipped cream dispensers.
> >
> >
>> >> jimbo
> >
> >
> >sam

Nitrous oxide is N2O, not NO2, which is an acid anhydride and will form
nitrous acid when it contacts water, thus causing a person inhaling it to
drown in their own fluids.  The prognosis for nitrous oxide is not much
better, since outside the clinical setting it is used without oxygen and
has caused death by asphyxiation in numerous cases.  Also, it is really
cold when is changes from liquid to gas phase, and numerous people have
either died or have suffer serious injuries by freezing the tissue in
their trachea or lungs.  As Hunter S. Thompson said, "there is no room in
the drug culture for amateurs."  If you are going to abuse drugs, be sure
to do it in an informed way so you will live to make it to a treatment
center.

N2O has a molecular weight of 44, much denser than the approximate 29
molecular weight of room air, hence causing a voice to go deeper the way
helium makes it go higher.  

Prolonged use of N2O in post-op cardiac patients as an analgesic for 24
hrs was found to significantly depress the immune system by interfering
with protein synthesis.

As for what Dennis Hopper used, many of us are without a clue, but God was
it frightening.  PS, if it were N2O, the way he used it would have killed
him since he took it straight without oxygen.