Gold Coast mother shares first hand stories of her son’s involvement with nitrous oxide, the legal party drug

This mother says drastic steps should be taken to make it harder for school leavers to get their hands on ‘nangs’. She should know. She has seen the true cost inhaling nitrous oxide first hand — in her own son.

MEGAN Short has seen the true cost of teenagers inhaling nitrous oxide first hand – and says drastic steps must be taken so it is harder for school leavers to get their hands on the gas.

The Gold Coast mother found shocking videos of her son collapsing after using the gas, also know as nangs, a drug she says ultimately cost him a job and his health.

Ms Short says she learned her son was using up to 400 canisters a week.

“I was mortified,” Ms Short said. “He would have hallucinations and then a rage after using it. It’s dangerous.”

Meg Short wants action on ‘nang’ control. Picture Glenn Hampson

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Ms Short was so angry and hurt she confronted her son’s alleged dealer – a “weedy guy cashing in on vulnerable people”.

She is well aware the drug can be bought at stores, given its use for whipping cream, and wants similar action to be taken as is the case for volatile substance misuse, or “chroming”, where a person dangerously inhales solvents or other household chemicals to get high.

Screenshots and photos from the Gold Coast Schoolies 2018 Facebook page show heavy drug and alcohol use, particularly "nangs".

She said the use of nangs, which can be bought for as little as $1 each at convenience stores, should be policed in a similar way – officers can seize and dispose of materials suspected of being used for chroming.

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“Until our governments wake up and realise this needs to be in the same category as chroming we are going to continue to see problems,” Ms Short said.

“I thank God we’re on the other side of it but it took a long time for my son to realise the dangers of nangs.

Nitrous oxide canisters or nang with a balloon, often used with nangs. Picture: Nic McElroy

“It’s ruining lives. You go into (a retailer) and the paint is all behind a locked cupboard and you have to be aged over 18 to buy spray paint.”

Ms Short’s call for tougher policing comes two days after NSW student Hamish Bidgood fell 11-storeys from a Surfers Paradise apartment. It’s believed the 18-year-old was alone in the hotel room at the time and had used nangs in the hours before.

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The drug gives short-term highs but teenagers are repeatedly using the canisters. Large amounts of nitrous oxide can produce loss of blood pressure, fainting or heart attack. Long-term effects include memory loss, disruption to reproductive systems and psychosis.

Ms Short said stores, manufacturers and dealers were exploiting a “loophole” to make money from the high given by nangs.

“They’ve obviously found that loophole in the system where kids are looking for a legal high,” she said. “So in our younger generation’s eyes they’re not doing anything wrong because it’s legal.

“We know it’s being abused, 99 per cent of people who are buying these bombs are getting them to abuse them.”

Schoolies said they were not deterred by a death potentially associated with the drug.

“Everyone knows someone who’s doing it, guys and girls, people are still going it now, which is probably a bit stupid,” a teenage girl said yesterday.