In his memoir Spare, Prince Harry has revealed he ‘enhanced his calm’ during the birth of his son Archie in 2019 by taking ‘several slow, penetrating hits’ of the canister of laughing gas in his wife Meghan’s hospital room. He described how when a nurse returned and tried to give Meghan a dose for pain relief, there was none left: ‘I could see the thought slowly dawning. Gracious, the husband’s had it all. “Sorry,” I said meekly.’
He is far from alone in enjoying the high that comes from laughing gas. Also known as nitrous oxide, it has become the second most popular drug (behind cannabis) among 16- to 24-year-olds, according to data from the Office for National Statistics. An astonishing 3.5 tonnes of canisters were collected in the aftermath of last year’s Notting Hill Carnival – that’s around four skips full of what some dub ‘hippy crack’.
Euphoria, relaxation and dissociation from reality are some of the effects that have made it so popular.
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