A deadly high

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Butyl nitrite: The legal rage in Washington

MSTANC

By Richard G. Zimmerman

Plain Dealer bureau

WASHINGTON — On July 23, a 30-year-old resident of Danbury, Conn., was seen with a small amber bottle in the men's room of a Washington disco. Before dawn, the man was pronounced dead in a local emergency room.

h that small bottle was a once-underground chemical used almost exclusively by the Conce underground gay community. Now, as the worlds of the homosexual and the heterosexual avant-garde have openly merged under the pulsing sights of the disco, butyl nitrite has come out of the closet.

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Butyl nitrite is so much "out-of-the-closet” that a government expert on research into the abuse of inhalants recently concluded: "Preliminary analysis of data obtained in early 1979 of High school seniors in over 150 schools indicates that these nitrites are widely used."

Sold in tiny, one-third-ounce bottles for about $6, butyl nitrite goes by such exotic and suggestive trade names as Rush, Climax, Hard Ware, Locker Room, and Bolt. Due to its effect on the body and because it sometimes is bought in cloth-wrapped glass vials that pop when broken open, the chemical is genericaly known as a "popper."

But unlike most mind-altering drugs, butyl nitrite by any name is legal and likely to remain so, despite the fact that its effect on the body reads like a clinical description of a cardiovascular convulsion.

First, there is little existing clinical evience that normal use of the chemical, that is, inhalation of its fumes, causes lasting harm. The Danbury resident who died from butyl nitrite poisoning actually drank the liquid instead of inhaling it, according to the medical examiner.

Second, manufacturers and distributors of poppers, a multimillion-dollar business, are careful to label their product as "room odorizers" or "liquid incense" and do not recommend that it be inhaled directly from the bottle. They cite the glue manufacturers, who legitimately cannot be held responsible if their product is abused by being inhaled.

This obvious and admitted technical ruse so far has kept various agencies of the federal government from cracking down on the distribution of butyl nitrite, even though simply opening a bottle of the chemical in a room doesn't do anything for anyone and everyone knows it. To become a "recreational drug," the chemical must be inhaled directly.

-Butyl nitrite is a close chemical cousin of amyl nitrite, a prescription drug once widely used for the temporary treatment of angina pectoris, or chest pains, associated with heart problems.

Like its chemical cousin, butyl nitrite causes the blood vessels to dilate, lowers blood pressure and causes increased heart beat for

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