High from a spray can

What I found on the shelves of a home-goods store

I was doing a household shop at a well-known home-goods chain when, among the air fresheners, one can stopped me. It had none of the usual visual language of that shelf: no flowers, no pastel tones, no promise of lavender or bergamot notes. Just a generic label that looked like it was placed there to fill an empty spot. I checked the price, read the ingredients and wondered why a home product looked so bare. Back home, I searched online and found that this kind of can has been showing up for months in news reports, school bulletins and the accounts of people who work with teenagers, as one of the cheapest and easiest ways to grab a few minutes of euphoria.

The gas hidden inside these cans, from nitrous oxide to solvents

Under generic labels, different substances can be found, united by being volatile, easy to buy and, in the eyes of Italian law, not classified as narcotics. Nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas, is now the most talked-about culprit: the same compound used in dentistry, as a propellant for whipped cream in the food industry and, historically, in anaesthesia. Alongside it survives an older habit, breathing in the propellant of hairspray, glue and household aerosols directly, a practice known for decades as sniffing or huffing. The main difference lies in the packaging: small metal cartridges sold as refills for kitchen cream whippers, balloons filled on the street, or ordinary spray cans whose only purpose, for the buyer, is the compressed gas inside.

How teenagers use it to get high

The ritual is simple, and that is exactly why it spreads so fast through schoolyards and parks. Some inhale the contents straight from the container, others transfer it into a balloon and breathe from that instead, a method that circulates on TikTok under the label “chroming.” The effect lasts only a couple of minutes: euphoria, disorientation, a floaty feeling some describe as a brief escape from reality. That very brevity pushes people to repeat the gesture several times in one evening, often in a group, splitting the cost of cartridges through informal pooled funds. Because the product is legal, cheap and sold with no age check, many younger users assume it carries little risk. Figures gathered by health bodies and police forces across Europe tell a very different story.

The numbers in Italy, from school surveys to local bans

The most recent snapshot comes from the 2024 ESPAD survey of fifteen and sixteen-year-old students: 1% report having tried nitrous oxide, below the European average of 3.1% but still climbing compared with earlier rounds. Italy’s annual report to Parliament on drug dependency confirms a picture in which legal, or seemingly legal, substances, medication, nitrous oxide, new psychoactive substances, are gaining ground precisely among minors, while cannabis use is falling. On the ground, signals are coming even from small towns: in Limbiate, near Monza, the mayor issued an order banning possession and use of the gas in public parks after empty cartridges turned up in spots where teenagers gather, with fines reaching 500 euros. A similar measure followed in Carvico, targeting purchases by minors in particular. Several other administrations in northern Italy have since adopted comparable rules, a sign the trend now touches smaller towns, not only big cities.

The picture abroad, from the UK to the United States

The European snapshot drawn by the EU Drugs Agency (EUDA) puts prevalence at between 0.3% and 3.4% among students across member states, with higher peaks in Ireland, where some surveys suggest almost one in four young substance users has already tried laughing gas, and in the UK, where the 16 to 24 age bracket reaches 9%. Denmark, France, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Portugal have already introduced sales restrictions, a sign the issue has reached institutional tables well beyond Italy’s borders. In the United States the picture covers a wider range of inhalants, from felt-tip markers to paint solvents: figures compiled by AddictionHelp put lifetime use at over 22 million Americans, with roughly 750,000 new cases every year and a prevalence that already peaks in eighth grade, at 3.6% of students. Fatal inhalant overdoses in the country are estimated at around 200 a year, almost always from sudden cardiac arrest.

What it does to the body, from immediate risks to lasting damage

In the short term, inhaling these substances can cause dizziness, loss of coordination, fainting and frostbite-like burns where skin touches the metal of the cartridge. The gravest danger, though, involves the heart: the gas can disrupt cardiac rhythm badly enough to trigger sudden arrest, a mechanism doctors call sudden sniffing death syndrome, which can strike even on a first try, regardless of the dose inhaled. With frequent, prolonged use, nitrous oxide deactivates vitamin B12, a process that damages the spinal cord and peripheral nervous system, leading to tingling, difficulty walking and, in severe cases, partial paralysis. Traditional solvents, the kind found in cleaning products or paint, add the risk of harm to the liver, kidneys and brain, with a cognitive toll that some estimates put at up to 80% of regular users.

The stories behind the numbers

In 2018, a nineteen-year-old Dutch man died after inhaling the propellant from an ordinary aerosol deodorant, wrapping a towel around his head to concentrate the fumes. He collapsed from cardiac arrest, and doctors at Maastad Hospital in Rotterdam could not revive him despite repeated attempts with a defibrillator. The British Medical Journal noted at the time that the first documented death from inhaling deodorant dates back to 1975, proof that the problem is anything but new. In Limbiate, during a public event titled “One Balloon Is Enough,” a mother described her son’s difficult recovery from a nitrous oxide dependency, a testimony that moved the community more than any statistic could. These are different episodes from different eras and different substances, yet they point to the same fragility: the impulse to seek a quick way out, and the tendency to underestimate, often because nobody ever spelled it out, how costly that shortcut can turn out to be.In 2018, a nineteen-year-old Dutch man died after inhaling the propellant from an ordinary aerosol deodorant, wrapping a towel around his head to concentrate the fumes. He collapsed from cardiac arrest, and doctors at Maastad Hospital in Rotterdam could not revive him despite repeated attempts with a defibrillator. The British Medical Journal noted at the time that the first documented death from inhaling deodorant dates back to 1975, proof that the problem is anything but new. In Limbiate, during a public event titled “One Balloon Is Enough,” a mother described her son’s difficult recovery from a nitrous oxide dependency, a testimony that moved the community more than any statistic could. These are different episodes from different eras and different substances, yet they point to the same fragility: the impulse to seek a quick way out, and the tendency to underestimate, often because nobody ever spelled it out, how costly that shortcut can turn out to be.

An old kind of distress that keeps changing shape

Teenage distress has deep roots. Parents and grandparents lived through their own versions of escape, wine sipped in secret, cigarettes smoked behind the school gates, heavier substances that marked entire decades. What changes are the tools, and the speed at which a trend spreads thanks to social media, as already described in our piece on vaping among Italian teens, but the underlying need stays the same: to feel less alone, less inadequate, less crushed by expectations. A can bought at a home-goods store, no questions asked and no age limit, is just the latest version of a problem society struggles to recognise until it turns up on a shelf in disguise.

As a mother, I carry home a question more than an answer. I hope that my son, should he ever feel troubled enough to look for a way out, chooses first to talk about it, rather than reach for a black can bought at the corner shop.