From: [d b lackbu] at [alleg.edu] (Dave Blackburn)
Newsgroups: rec.music.gdead
Subject: Re: Nitrous sucks.
Date: 6 Oct 1993 23:57:39 GMT

[f--e] at [cxf111.rh.psu.edu] (Chuck Fee)  writes:
>no2 is a known bad guy, right? Can anyone with chemistry experience shed some
>light on this?? I thought n2o is really stable and unreactive. Dave  
Blackburn?
>
>What's the real story on n2o from someone in the know??

Ooh, ooh! I'm a net.personality now!
(chemistry lesson moved to the bottom, so as not to bore you)

Bottom line is, people do a lot worse things to their bodies and to the planet  
for fun. Nitrous is bad, acid is bad, pot is bad, so are tobacco, alcohol, and  
caffeine. If you are really worried about birth defects, cancer, etc you  
should probably steer away from all drugs and sit around munching brown rice  
and broccoli (which are yummy any how). 

Remember the quote 
:     "fact that dentists have a 50% higher possiblity of having
: children with birth defects due to the fact that dentists are
: constantly exposed to nitrous"

Well, that probability is pretty small in the first place. So increasing it by  
50% is not good but it hardly means all dentists have two-headed kids, either. 
I hate abusing statistics like that. 

The real problem with nitrous, like all drugs, is the over-use. Somebody sits  
in the car with all the windows rolled up and the tank opened, they aren't  
breathing anything *else*! So remember the old song, "Have another HIT! Of  
Fresh Air!". You just gotta take a few puffs of air in between puffs of  
whatever. 

<Prof mode on>

Nitrogen forms a mess of different compounds with oxygen. A quick perusal of a  
textbook (Greenwood & Earnshaw's excellent but sadly out of print "Chemistry  
Of the Elements") shows: 
"Nitrogen is unique among the elements in forming no fewer than 7 molecular  
oxides", of which three are relevant to Deadheads. 
#1: NO (nitrogen monoxide) is a colorless gas with one nitrogen atom and one  
oxygen atom, produced in automobile engines and in some reactions involving  
nitric acid (HNO3). It is immediately oxidized (by oxygen) in air to NO2.  
Interestingly, NO in very small quantities has a physiological role: it has  
been implicated in learning and in producing erections. (It was voted  
"Molecule of the Year" a couple years ago by a major scientific magazine. No  
kidding.)
#2: NO2 (nitrogen dioxide) is a brownish gas, containing one nitrogen atom and  
two oxygen atoms. It is partially responsible for the brown pollution haze you  
can see over Los Angeles and Gary, Indiana among other places. This is the  
poisonous one. It is exceedingly dangerous to inhale. 

     **** This is why you should never try to make your own N2O! ****

NO is a trace byproduct in most of the reactions used to make N2O, and it will  
form NO2 in (or on the way to) your lungs. 
#3. N2O (dinitrogen monoxide or nitrous oxide) is the fun one. G&E calls it "a  
moderately unreactive gas", so Chuck is more or less right about the  
reactivity. "Notwithstanding the fascinating reaction chemistry of N2O it is  
salutory to remember that its largest commercial use is as a propellant and  
aerating agent for `whipped' ice cream - this depends on its solubility under  
pressure in fats coupled with its non-toxicity in small concentrations and its  
absence of taste. It has also been much used as an anaesthetic." (G&E pg. 511)

N2O is structurally similar (structure N=N=O) to known greenhouse bad guy CO2,  
(O=C=O) but (and this is not confirmed but should be considered reliable) is  
probably worse for the Greenhouse effect on a molecule-for-molecule basis.  
However, I would guess that the effects are dwarfed by CO2 because so many  
megatons of CO2 are pumped into the air by burning fossil fuels that a few  
hundred thousand dentists and Deadheads won't contribute very much. You  
probably do worse damage having a smoke or a Veggie Burrito Fart (tm), and  
driving to the show is much, much worse. Trace quantities of N2O are indeed  
produced in nature by lightning, fires, etc, but again these quantities are  
probably not significant and in any case you can't stop the weather. 

<Prof mode off>

ObDeadContent: On the Casey Jones from my 1/16/70 tape, the guitar line sounds  
like laughing. "Bwa bwa bwa bwa, ha ha ha ha, Casey Jones you better watch  
your speed". 
ObTapeGrovel: Anybody got a primo copy of this show? Mine bites.
--

* Dave Blackburn  [d b lackbu] at [alleg.edu]  flames to [s--f] at [home.dev.null] *
* Chemistry, Macs, Hypercard, cats,  <>< religion, & the Dead      *
* (Anyone else who held these opinions would be as crazy as I am.) *
*   "Sometimes the songs that we hear are just songs of our own"   *
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