I could have looked for tanks to save money, but I surely would have died that way. I could control intake with cartridges because the limiting factor was that you had to keep cracking them. A case of 600 whippets one after another would last about 5 hours, so 2 a minute. I've heard too many stories of people dying with tanks.

Forgive me ... I am completely naive regarding this subject but find these descriptions both fascinating and confusing...

Do I understand: if you're on a whippet bender you have to do a thing every 30 seconds ?

It seems like that would interrupt and greatly diminish whatever pleasurable effects the substance was giving you ... in fact, it sounds somewhat stressful ...

You can put 2-3 into a dispensing canister at a time, but yes, every 60-90 seconds it requires interaction.

This has probably saved a lot of lives, tbh. It's hard to suffocate yourself if doing so requires motor skills.

In Australia, their paramedics have Penthrox tubes that have an anesthetic in them.

The idea is that the patient can self-administer, but if they over do it, they get too messed up to operate the thing until it wears off again.

Cracking whippets is like popping bubble wrap. It's a pleasant repetitive motion that becomes part of automatic muscle memory after a while. It becomes a meditation, like praying the rosary.

Yes, it’s a fleeting rush. I’ve probably done nitrous 5-6 times over a couple of decades but I can see the allure.