Whippets (Nitrous Oxide): What They Are, B12 Nerve Damage, and Galaxy Gas

What is a whippet?

A whippet is a small metal cartridge of nitrous oxide, also called a charger, sold to pressurize whipped cream dispensers. The National Institute on Drug Abuse’s inhalants page describes nitrous oxide sold in small vials “known as whippets or chargers,” with the gas released into a whipped cream can, a bag, or a balloon. The DEA lists “whippets” as a street name for inhalants on its inhalant fact sheet. “Whip-it!” is also one of the brands the FDA named in its 2025 warning. Whippets, whip-its, and whippits are the same thing.

Nitrous oxide is the same gas dentists call laughing gas. The difference is not the molecule. It is the dose, the setting, and what the gas is mixed with.

The laughing gas high, and why it does not stay small

Inhalants can produce effects similar to alcohol, sedatives, or the early stages of anesthesia, according to NIDA: a short high with warmth and excitement, light-headedness, and distorted perception. The DEA adds euphoria, dizziness, and loss of consciousness. The DEA notes that inhalant intoxication lasts only a few minutes, so people repeat it over and over across an evening to keep it going. That repetition is where both the acute danger and the nerve damage come from.

Galaxy Gas and the FDA warning

In 2025 the FDA told consumers not to inhale nitrous oxide products of any size, “canisters, tanks, or chargers,” and named brands including Galaxy Gas, Cloud 9ine, Cosmic Gas, Euro Gas, ExoticWhip, FastGas, HOTWHIP, InfusionMax, MassGass, Miami Magic, Monster Gas, NITROX, and Whip-it!. The FDA advisory (current version dated June 4, 2025) says the products are sold online and at retailers including Amazon, eBay, Walmart, smoke and vape shops, and gas stations, and it lists what inhaling them can cause: asphyxiation, blood clots, frostbite, headache, impaired bowel and bladder function, limb weakness, loss of consciousness, numbness, palpitations, paralysis, psychiatric disturbances including hallucinations and paranoia, tingling, trouble walking, vitamin B12 deficiency, and in some cases death.

“Galaxy gas” has become shorthand for the whole category of large, flavored tanks. A 2025 review in Cureus of nitrous oxide misuse describes these canisters as marketed as cooking aids, with packaging and flavors such as vanilla cupcake and blueberry mango that appeal to teenagers and young adults, and notes that use is highest between ages 16 and 30.

Vitamin B12 and nerve damage from whippets

This is the part most users do not know. Nitrous oxide inactivates vitamin B12, which the nervous system needs to maintain myelin, the insulation around nerves. The B12 is still there, but it stops working, so repeated use produces a functional B12 deficiency, even in someone who eats well. The usual explanation runs through a B12-dependent enzyme, methionine synthase; a 2011 review in the Journal of the Neurological Sciences notes that the exact path from there to nerve damage is still debated.

The most prominent result, per the Cureus review, is subacute combined degeneration of the spinal cord: loss of myelin in the columns of the cord that carry position sense and motor signals. It shows up as:

• Numbness or tingling, usually starting in the feet and sometimes the hands
• Weakness in the legs, and trouble walking or keeping balance, worse in the dark
• Clumsiness and falls
• Bladder or bowel trouble
• Anxiety, depression, or, in heavy users, psychosis

There is a diagnostic trap. A standard blood B12 level can come back normal or even high, because the B12 is present but disabled. The tests that show the problem are elevated homocysteine and methylmalonic acid, and an MRI can show the spinal cord changes. Anyone with these symptoms who has used nitrous oxide should tell the doctor directly; it changes which tests get ordered.

Treatment is stopping the gas and taking high-dose B12 under medical care. In the cases the review examined, recovery took anywhere from a few weeks to more than a year, and people who were treated earlier did better. Taking B12 while continuing to use is not a substitute for stopping, because the gas keeps inactivating it.

Can whippets kill you?

Yes. A 2025 study in JAMA Network Open using CDC death certificate data counted 1,240 deaths attributed to nitrous oxide poisoning among Americans aged 15 to 74 from 2010 to 2023, rising from 23 in 2010 to 156 in 2023. The rate climbed steeply through 2018 and then held roughly level.

The ways it kills are mostly mechanical:

• Oxygen deprivation. Breathing pure nitrous oxide displaces oxygen. The DEA describes inhalant deaths from fumes crowding oxygen out of the lungs and from suffocation when a bag is placed over the head.
• Loss of consciousness in the wrong place. Passing out while standing, driving, or near water.
• Choking on vomit after inhaling, which the DEA also lists.
• Cold and pressure injuries. The FDA lists frostbite, and a 2016 review of the case literature reported frostbite and pneumomediastinum, air leaking into the chest, among nitrous oxide’s medical effects.

Inhalant warnings tend to lead with “sudden sniffing death,” the cardiac death that can follow a single inhalant session. NIDA says it can happen even the first time someone uses an inhalant. The DEA adds that it is particularly associated with butane, propane, and aerosol chemicals. That does not rule it out for nitrous oxide, and the risks listed above apply either way.

Is nitrous oxide legal in New Jersey?

Buying it for food use is legal. Inhaling it to get high is not. New Jersey’s toxic-chemical statute, N.J.S.A. 2C:35-10.4, as amended by P.L.2007, c.31, names nitrous oxide as a “toxic chemical.” Under that statute:

• Inhaling the fumes of a toxic chemical, or possessing one, for the purpose of intoxication is a disorderly persons offense. Licensed medical, surgical, and dental use is exempt.
• Selling or offering to sell a toxic chemical knowing it is meant to be used for intoxication is a fourth-degree offense. Nitrous oxide sold lawfully under the state’s 1982 nitrous oxide law (N.J.S.A. 24:6G-1 et seq.) is outside that subsection.
• The same 2007 law added nitrous oxide tanks, cartridges, and canisters, and the “chargers” used to discharge them, to the state’s definition of drug paraphernalia when used or intended for that purpose.

Statutes get amended, and this summary is not legal advice. The Overdose Prevention Act lists the inhaling and possession charges, not the sale offense, among those it protects against for a person who calls 911 in good faith and for the person who overdosed. The Act defines an overdose by a controlled dangerous substance, alone or mixed with something else, so it may not cover an emergency involving nitrous oxide alone. Call 911 anyway.

For parents: what whippet use looks like

Small silver cartridges in a car, a bedroom, or a backpack, especially many at once; a cracker or dispenser with no whipped cream in the house; balloons with no party; large, brightly colored tanks with dessert-flavor names. Physical signs are brief, because the high is brief, but repeated use can show as numb or tingling feet, a new unsteady walk, or frequent falls in a young person with no other explanation. That last pattern is a medical question before it is a disciplinary one. Our family guide covers how to raise it.

Are whippets addictive, and does anyone need detox?

The Cureus review describes compulsive use and frequent use of other drugs alongside nitrous oxide, and concludes the gas has a high potential for dependence. Treatment for nitrous oxide alone usually starts with the medical problem: a neurological exam, homocysteine and methylmalonic acid tests, and B12 treatment, followed by counseling for the pattern of use.

Medical detox becomes the question when nitrous oxide is one part of heavier use. Daily drinking, regular benzodiazepine use, and opioid dependence each have a withdrawal that can be dangerous or that needs medication. Our polysubstance detox guide covers how programs manage more than one substance at once, and our guide to ketamine and the k-hole covers another dissociative drug. If someone is having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988.

In New Jersey

Under New Jersey law P.L.2017, c.28, fully insured New Jersey plans and the State Health Benefits and School Employees’ plans cannot require prior authorization for the first 180 days per plan year of in-network treatment your own physician, psychologist or psychiatrist finds medically necessary, and cannot run concurrent or retrospective medical-necessity review for the first 28 days of an in-network inpatient stay. Self-funded employer plans, Medicare and Medicaid are not covered by that rule, so verify with the plan. NJ FamilyCare covers the substance use continuum, from withdrawal management through outpatient care, with the level of care set by ASAM criteria and, for some levels, prior authorization. Our insurance guides go plan by plan.

ReachNJ, the state’s treatment referral line, answers at 1-844-732-2465, and the IME Addictions Access Center at 1-844-276-2777 screens NJ FamilyCare and uninsured residents and refers them to treatment. Both are independent of us. Periscope Behavioral Health, which publishes this site, is opening a medical detox in Hammonton, Atlantic County, expected Summer 2027. Until then, Periscope Behavioral Health, our publisher’s admissions line, at (888) 313-3583 can talk through options in New Jersey and Florida, including facilities Periscope operates. What a plan covers depends on the plan and the facility’s network status.