First off. It's really not nice throwing out terms like "it's something you've made up". But anyway here are some pointers why I think that Nitrous oxide is worse then cocaine, these are stats from the Netherlands because that's where I did the research:
A single dose shows traceable, but reverseable, neurotoxic effects in rats:
> Our findings demonstrate that short-term exposure of adult rats to N2O causes injury to PC/RSC neurons that is rapidly reversible, and prolonged N2O exposure causes neuronal cell death.
In the Netherlands the lower bound of people with paralysis, such as beeing unable to walk due to the effects of using Nitrous oxide is 64 in 2020. And that is by querying a subset of hospitals. These are indeed extreme usage cases. You also don't get a heart attack from snorting a few lines of coke.
That's worse than I was aware of. Thanks for putting some rough stats on the size of the problem.
At the same time, in the US in 2021 there were 7.1 cocaine-related deaths per 100k[0], and 1.7% of the population had used cocaine in the past year[1], so their mortality rate is more like 417 deaths per 100k. That's hugely higher than the rate in the Netherlands and I wonder why there's such a difference.
>That's hugely higher than the rate in the Netherlands and I wonder why there's such a difference.
Interesting. I wonder if average drug purity and common adulterants make up for this difference? What is the average "street" cocaine purity in the US vs the Netherlands? What do they cut it with? Inert substances? Amphetamines? Meth? Mephedrone? Who knows.
Also, what about the mode of taking it. Is there huge variability in how the users take it between the two countries due to different culture? (snorting vs smoking vs injecting, also multi-drug use). Finally, what if in one country this particular drug is more popular with the older population while in the other it's "all the rage" with the younger people? Death statistics will be different too.
A single dose shows traceable, but reverseable, neurotoxic effects in rats:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03064...
> Our findings demonstrate that short-term exposure of adult rats to N2O causes injury to PC/RSC neurons that is rapidly reversible, and prolonged N2O exposure causes neuronal cell death.
In the Netherlands the lower bound of people with paralysis, such as beeing unable to walk due to the effects of using Nitrous oxide is 64 in 2020. And that is by querying a subset of hospitals. These are indeed extreme usage cases. You also don't get a heart attack from snorting a few lines of coke.
https://nos.nl/artikel/2338520-64-mensen-met-gedeeltelijke-d...
This is much more then the yearly reported deaths for cocaine in the Netherlands. Which is reported to be 38 https://www.jellinek.nl/vraag-antwoord/hoe-vaak-gaat-er-iema....
If you compare the number of users in the netherlands you can see the picture how bad it actually is:
- Cocaine had 230k users in 2020
- Nitrous oxide had 290k users in 2020
https://www.trimbos.nl/actueel/nieuws/dit-zijn-de-opvallends....
This means you are much more likely to get paralysed by Nitrous oxide usage then you are to die from cocaine.
It's definitely not a good idea to label NO2 as a safe drug.