Amyl Nitrite
Amyl Nitrite is a highly volatile flammable liquid which evaporates at room temperature. Amyl Nitrite is just one member of the chemical group called Alkyl Nitrites.
The small bottles packaged under such glorious names as ‘Rush’ and ‘Liquid Gold’ that are sold in sex shops in Europe as ‘room odourisers’ are often just called ‘amyl’, although it’s actually more common for the bottle to contain amyl’s chemical cousin, the similar but less potent Butyl Nitrite.
I sometimes think it might be nice to have a chemical cousin, but then I’m sure it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
Big breaths…
Amyl vapor is inhaled. You should never drink amyl, in the same way that you should never drink petrol, or bleach.
Some people share their bottle of amyl around in a club for polite sniffs, like it’s the latest smell from some fashion house and they’re still unsure about parting with their readies. Some people just lift the bottle close to their mouths and gasp in big breaths of the vapor, like it’s rush hour in a crowded, choking, city-center street, and they’ve just found the last source of free Oxygen for the next five blocks.
I’ve seen people dip a cigarette in the bottle, and then inhale deeply through the cigarette. Just in case you weren’t sure what ‘volatile’ meant, you should only ever attempt this feat with an unlit cigarette. Exploding glass bottles are not many people’s idea of a fun night out, just like melting your face isn’t, either.
…and then…BOOM!
A few seconds later, you feel light-headed, dizzy, your heartbeat feels like it’s pulsing through your body (which of course it is), only more so, there’s a rush of warm flush to your skin, followed by relaxation and a general feeling of well-being.
Like all drug effects, you get to learn how to experience what you want to experience if you experience the experience more often. You might just feel light-headed and a bit queasy. ‘Dizzy’ might mean you lose balance enough to fall over. It’s not unusual. The effects are over in a flash. Not a real flash, just a very short time. If you do see a flash it’s almost invariably because someone’s just taken a photo of you making a complete tit of yourself, politely sniffing a small bottle of something calling itself RUSH! and then rushing and falling over. Or some other flashy thing.
Lots of people who use amyl only use it when they’re clubbing. Some of those people only use it when they’re clubbing an on an e. Like many things that you might do on an e, whilst eeee-ing, the subjective experience of using amyl is slightly amplified. In the way that the subjective experience of bungee-jumping might be slightly amplified if you first donned a jet-pack. Be careful, it would say on the side of the jet-pack, if you intend to use this product to give your jump that extra rush. The ground is hard and generally relatively inflexible, and hurts when you crash into it. Please make sure that you are young and fit and healthy, and not liable to cause injury to yourself if you put this additional strain on your heart and circulatory system. It would probably also have a large warning label on the pack that said Highly Inflammable! With upper-case H and I, just like that. Just in case you’d forgotten.
Shake-shake-shake the room…
Issa vasodilator, innit. Blood vessels enlarge, blood pressure drops, pulse increases.
The other main effect is as a muscle relaxant; a popular urban myth is the near-legendary status that poppers (for when you get bored of calling it amyl) have as a muscle relaxant. Particularly the anal sphincter muscle. And it’s sold in sex shops. The near-legendary status is obviously of more interest to some scenes than others. Lube may be slightly messier, but it is generally an exceptionally effective means of reducing friction in any intimate relationship.
So what?
If you suffer from circulation problems or from low blood pressure, be particularly wary. This substance is not for you. Emergency rooms are rarely fun.
Alkyl nitrites are known to be potent inhibitors of the human immune system. Whether or not your immune system is compromised in any way, alkyl nitrites will damage human tissue. Your body. Research sourced from the US National Institute on Drug Abuse links the use of alkyl nitrites in the presence of HIV to ‘sustained alterations to the human immune system’. Whatever your thoughts about NIDA, any research that suggests that alkyl nitrites may be connected to Karposi’s Sarcoma, a skin cancer that can indicate the development of AIDS, is worth sitting up to take note of, and find out more about.
ExSqueeze me, Officer, I’m a little off my face
In the UK it is not (yet) illegal to possess Amyl or Butyl Nitrite. Amyl Nitrite is controlled by the Medicines Act, so you need to be an appropriately authorised person to produce or sell it. Butyl Nitrite is not yet controlled. I have read (in a newspaper, so it may or may not be true, but it’s a nice story, anyway) of at least one ‘joke shop’ vendor who was successfully prosecuted for selling Butyl Nitrite, when he admitted to the arresting officers that he fully expected the purchaser to stuff the bottle up his nose and inhale deeply. Note that it isn’t currently controlled by any legislation in the UK. I’m not sure what happened on appeal (errr-well, m’lud, the defendant’s plea is that he didn’t actually break the law at all. Shall I send him down now, and save you the bother?)
In the US, these nitrites have been banned since 1988 by the US congress who cited an AIDS link. Any port in a storm, as the saying goes. It probably came to some congressman’s attention that leaving the lid off a bottle of Rush! actually makes your room smell bloody awful. Like it’s full of Butyl Nitrite, or something. Oddly, this hasn’t yet been noticed in the UK. Let’s hope that Tony Blair hasn’t read this far.
