Wall Street Journal – October 10, 1977 (Front Page Article – cont. pg 15)
By Stephen J. Sansweet, Staff Reporter of the Wall Street Journal
At a chic New York nightclub, a trendy East Side couple take turns sniffing a colorless liquid from a small bottle, then start to giggle as a warm red glow suffuses their faces.
A Los Angeles businesswoman, in the middle of a particularly hectic public-relations job, confides “I could really use a ‘popper’ now.”
And at San Francisco’s latest “in” disco, young men pass around metal inhalers, breathe in deeply and start dancing even more frenetically to the pounding musical beat.
All of these people are using a chemical designed to imitate a drug that has been prescribed by doctors for more than a century. In the last year or so this chemical has caught fire as the latest and one of the cheapest ways to get an instant high. Unlike many other “recreational” drugs, this one is legal. It is also becoming a big business nationwide, much to the dismay of some physicians and regulatory authorities.
The prescription drug that is being copied so successfully, amyl nitrite, (mistakenly referred to by most users as nitrate), was introduced in 1867 to ease the pain of angina attacks for people with heart conditions. Amyl, as it is commonly called, has long been marketed as a prescription drug in thin-walled glass ampules covered by cotton mesh.
When a user crushes the ampule to inhale the fumes of the volatile liquid, the ampule makes a popping sound, hence the term ”poppers”. That nickname is used today even for the non-ampule variety sold legally over the counter in thousands of bars, bookstores, boutiques and bead shops.
“Very Profitable Item”
These “poppers” are sold in half-ounce or smaller bottles under such names as Locker Room, Rush and Bullet. The chief ingredient in most of these products is butyl nitrite, a chemical first cousin to amyl. Manufacturers are extremely tight-lipped about sales figures, but an educated guess is that sales of the main brands total as much as $15 million a year at retail prices of $4-$10 a bottle. “It’s a very, very profitable item” says Jim Beale, owner of the Main Line Gift Shop in San Francisco.
In addition to the main brands, at least half-dozen more are being turned out by other small manufacturers. Observers also say that street sales of a homemade variety so-called “bathtub amyl” may account for another several million dollars a year.
“It’s a great kick” says one west Coast user. “You take a sniff, and right away you get this rush. You get all warm and tingly and you feel like you’re strapped to the side of a rocket ship that’s just blasted off.” The sensation, he says, lasts about a minute to 90 seconds.
That “kick” isn’t surprising, given the properties of amyl and butyl nitrite. Richard D. Kramer, a San Francisco pharmacist who has studied the phenomenon, says the chemicals relax involuntary muscles and blood vessels. When the vessels dilate, there is an instantaneous drop in blood pressure. In a reflex action, the heartbeat increases dramatically to bring the pressure back up. A common side effect is headaches, which may last for hours. Mr. Kramer says that other side effects can include blushing, heavy sweating and some dizziness.
Into the Cracks
Unlike amyl, butyl nitrite has fallen into the cracks of the federal regulatory system. The Food and Drug Administration isn’t interested primarily because the products are sold as “room odorizers” or “liquid incense,” not as drugs. A spokesman for the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission says the agency’s Bureau of Biomedical Sciences feels the chemicals are hazardous and should be banned, “but you have to come up with substantial data on injuries to do that, and so far there just isn’t any.” The agency did prod major manufacturers to include cautionary labels that warn, among other things: Not for human consumption.
At a recent hearing, a West Haven, Conn., church organist testified that he and some friends have indeed used butyl nitrite as a room odorizer. They may be a select few. Most of the products have a cloyingly sweet odor that would put off even the most dedicated hedonist, but it isn’t as bad taken in small whiffs directly from the bottle or from an inhaler that contains a cotton wad soaked with the chemical.
A major lure of Rush, Locker Room and the others is their reputed value as aphrodisiacs. The chemicals are said to heighten and prolong sensation, and one product recently was advertised with the line “When the nitrite-dispersed, non-aerosol aroma fills the room, sex is in the air.” Mr. Kramer says, however, that “the nitrites are nonsexual drugs in themselves and can have quite the opposite effect on someone who doesn’t like them.”
All of this activity astonishes Burroughs Wellcome Co., the drug company that has sold pharmaceutical-grade amyl nitrite since the 1920’s. It was a prescription drug until 1960 when the FDA decided to make it over-the-counter. “Around 1964 we started getting reports of non medical abuse of amyl, and we and others wrote the FDA asking that it be made a prescription product again,” a spokesman for the company says. The FDA complied four years later, but sales of the prescription drug remained reasonably level until the last12 months or so, when they suffered a 30% drop.
That is when the entrepreneurs entered what some of them like to call “the aroma market.” Amyl has been big in the homosexual community and among users of other drugs since the 1960s, but the sale of nitrite really took off when butyl nitrite was developed in the early 1970’s by Clifford Hassing, now 34 years old and the president of West American Industries of Los Angeles.
“It all started because I wanted a room odorizer for my own personal use and couldn’t find one on the market.” Mr. Hassing says, carefully choosing his words. “So I slipped into a chemistry lab (he was a pre-medical student) and whipped up a product to meet my needs.” That’s how Locker Room, which to Mr. Hassing smells like a men’s gymnasium, was born. At first sold to friends and neighbors, the ubiquitous amber bottle (three-tenths of an ounce for $5) became a word-of-mouth marketing sensation.
The main competition comes from Pacific Western Distributing Corp. of San Francisco. W. Jay Freezer, chairman, claims his company’s Rush now has at least 60% of the total market (a figure Mr. Hassing disputes) after only a year in business. Rush has been aided by a large advertising campaign in specialized newspapers and magazines and an aggressive marketing program. Besides being available at the regular outlets, Rush now is sold in a few record stores and pharmacies and is promoted at boutique and gift trade shows. Mr. Freezer says:
“If Safeway supermarket customers want the product, I don’t see why it couldn’t eventually be sold there.”
The biggest legal challenge to the nitrites comes from the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection. Commissioner Mary Heslia has proposed a statewide ban on all butyl products under authority of the state’s child protection act. “This is a harmful product that police have reported is being sniffed by children to get high,” the commissioner says. “The primary intention certainly isn’t to use it as a room odorizer and there isn’t any labeling adequate to protect the public health and safety.”
As of now, the safety question is unresolved. A Burroughs Wellcome official says long-term clinical experience with amyl nitrite shows that the product doesn’t have any harmful effects, and a Canadian cardiologist testified on behalf of the makers of Rush at a Connecticut hearing, that he has seen only “minor complications” in years o clinical experience with nitrites. Still, there haven’t been specific studies on possible adverse effects of frequent use of butyl compounds for recreational purposes over an extended period.
Dr. Richard R. Hamilton, a San Francisco physician, is concerned with abuse of nitrite products. “Some people go through an entire bottle in one evening,” he says, “and that amount of stress can put them in jeopardy, particularly if there are some heart or artery problems.”
Dr. Hamilton tells his patients with Asthma or hepatitis that the use of “poppers” can cause further health problems; he has treated people who have spilled the liquid in their eyes or nose. Curiously, in an informal survey, Dr. Hamilton found that of 500 men using nitrite products at least a few times a month, 50% believed that the chemicals were dangerous to their health.
©Wall Street Journal – October 10, 1977, By Stephen J. Sansweet, Staff Reporter of the Wall Street Journal
