It's fascinating to me that a pure element would have such immediate and significant effects on the human mind. I would think that this would generally require a more complex molecular shape that can fit with various receptors in the body and trigger the release of dopamine and other neurotransmitters.
Apparently, Xenon does this by acting as an antagonist of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor, a subtype of glutamate receptor, and also by enhancing the effect of ("potentiation of") gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). Other drugs that act along the NMDA pathway are Ketamine and Memantine (an Alzheimer's drug). And other drugs that act along the GABA pathway are Benzodiazepines (e.g., Diazepam, Lorazepam-- i.e,. Valium). And apparently Nitrous Oxide (N2O) uses both mechanisms as well.
My understanding of mechanisms from a chemistry perspective is that the anesthetics mess with the phospholipid bilayer making up the cell membrane in a way that closes off receptors. So it makes intuitive sense that dissolving giant xenon molecules in a layer could mess with it from a pure physical perspective. What's weird, to my mind, is that other noble gases don't have any effect - you'd expect a gradient.
and apparently Gou Teng, used in traditional chinese medicine and for blood pressure control ("and" because TCM wasn't developed with blood pressure cuffs at hand).
The HIF factor they mention is what your body makes when it’s going through hypoxia. It’s the same thing pranayama yoga (or more popularly Wim Hof breathing) does because you induce mild hypoxia conditions.
In college I used a lot of nitrous. I got small cartridges and a “cracker” with a balloon. It was pretty euphoric.
I stopped after recording myself taking it. I was unconscious a lot longer than I remembered being, and even though I was probably never at risk of suffocating there were long periods where I didn’t see myself breathing. That was enough.
I regret the effects it may have had on my brain. It’s impossible to know the counterfactual “what if” and maybe binge drinking was worse.
>In college I used a lot of nitrous. I got small cartridges and a “cracker” with a balloon.
That brings back memories. I remember one time falling off the bed I was sitting on, cracking my head on the concrete floor, and laying there thinking "this should really hurt, but it doesn't..........at all".
There is another post that is sounding an alarm on inert gas asphyxiation which I think is quite important but it's flagged, presumably because of a sidebar admonishment about drug addiction.
Breathing inert gasses is extremely dangerous. It is not like holding your breath: because the gas you inhale is free of oxygen, it actively pulls oxygen out of your blood. Instead of thinking about breath holding, think more like the USCSB videos where someone walks into a space with a nitrogen atmosphere and immediately drop unconscious, then someone goes in to save the first person (already knowing about the danger) and they both die. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2ItJe2Incs ).
When narcotic gasses are used for anesthetic purposes they're used with a gas manifold that mixes in pure oxygen to achieve a gas mix that won't kill the subject. Even this is easy to get wrong, and a wrong mix due to a flat tank or an incorrect setting can kill someone very quickly and quietly.
It's also not clear to me how psychologically safe it is, I've seen at least one clearly unhinged person on twitter going on about their xenon use... but I dunno if the drug use lead to they psych issues or the psych issues lead the the drug use. or if their issue was just related to inadvertent oxygen deprivation as a side effect of their xenon use. Studies of anesthetic use may not tell us much about recreational use since they're presumably not dosing people daily or multiple times daily for weeks at a time. -- it's not like you can easily purchase single doses, that bottle isn't going to use itself!
Cody of the Cody's Lab youtube channel has a video of what his voice sounds like after breathing each of the noble gasses. He certainly seemed to be experiencing symptoms afterward!
It's a shame xenon is an anesthetic. If it did not have that effect, one could pressure xenon until it was the same density as the body. It would still be a gas, and one could include some oxygen in it so one wouldn't suffocate (although breathing could be more laborious, perhaps require mechanical support).
Suspended in this gas, one could be subjected to much higher acceleration without injury, up the point that density differences in the body become important.
No, xenon is a NMDA antagonist meaning it has dissociative/anaesthetic effects like ketamine or nitrous oxide.
TFA talks about the effects coming on "within seconds" of inhalation, so it is clearly not just hypoxia which takes tens of seconds or minutes to manifest.
Clearly the symptoms aren't the same as just holding your breath, which makes me think that it is not, in fact, completely nonreactive. (But I'm a total noob to biochemistry.) Similar to Nitrous Oxide, which definitely has a powerful psychedelic effect and is not at all simply hypoxia.
I'm fairly certain when administered medically it's a controlled mix of oxygen and xenon, like nitrous at the dentist. They're not asphyxiating you, these molecules are psychoactive.
I do the Wim Hof breathing exercise that involves up to 15 seconds of hypoxia. I get a pretty significant head change from it. Hopefully I’m not causing any permanent damage.
Yeah, how can the body tell which noble gas it's breathing? As the article mentions, the xenon is exhaled in its original form without having been metabolized or having caused any chemical changes in the body!
Xenon is also produced as a fission product in nuclear reactors. In fact, if you're not careful it will accumulate and inhibit your nuclear reaction. In German, the term for this is xenon-poisoning.
Erowid has some other records of it. Sounds like nitrous but probably better. I wonder if humans evolved to react this way to certain gases or if its a coincidence.
I'm a hobbyist welder. When TIG welding you typically use 100% argon gas. I have a 60 cu ft cylinder hooked up to my welder right now; it costs $89 to refill at my local Airgas store.
As with anything medical, the price of the item isn't just the item itself, it's purity plus that someone has verified and stamped off on it. I don't know much about argon, but for nitrous oxide, food grade is generally between 99% and 99.9% pure. If you want medical grade, the threshold is 99.99% pure or better depending on what you're doing. Those additional nines are what drive the price up, plus the fact that someone put their skin in the game and signed off on it with their name.
They may have been referring to the price of Argon in it’s cryogenic liquid state. A 160L liquid cylinder will expand to 4426 cu ft at STP. Source: I used to design cryogenic liquid cylinders for MVE. Here’s a manual for typical cylinder.
dissociative effects so powerful you'll never perceive the world the same again doesn't sound like a great selling point in the worlds best anaesthetic
I find a lot of these casual drug use articles to be a bit naive on safety. “It does not cause metabolites or react” well it obviously modifies several biochemical processes in order to have an effect, who knows what long term effects it has on your brains computation. Our understanding of the biochemical interactions of various systems is still exceedingly immature. It’s best to say that from a safety perspective it probably won’t kill you straight away… and it might not screw up your personality straight away.
- "It’s best to say that from a safety perspective it probably won’t kill you straight away"
It *will* kill you straight away–it's an asphyxiant gas, any mistake involving oxygen supply will kill you in a few minutes, or leave you incapacitated and brain-damaged for the rest of your life. It's somewhat more hazardous than most, because it's (substantially) heaver than air, and accumulates in lungs.
(And you can be certain there will be mistakes, because a large subgroup of the users will be binge-drinking escapism addicts experimenting alone, drunk, self-administering this anesthetic out of a party balloon. The substack's rose-tinted focus on "luxury clinics" whitewashes the nature of hard drug use).
That's exactly what I was going to bring up with this. As a doctor I just chuckled when it got to here
> Xenon is considered “the perfect anesthetic” for 5 reasons:
> It’s extremely fast-acting — xenon gas kicks into full effect within seconds
> It wears off quickly — once the gas is removed, normal consciousness comes back within a minute or two
> It doesn’t interact with other drugs
> It leaves no lasting side effects or toxicity
> The anesthetic state xenon induces is extraordinarily powerful
The vast majority of drug incompatibilities are not a result of the physical interactions between the molecules. It's the undesirable effects that they exert in tandem on physiology. A vasodilator and a negative inotrope don't have to chemically react with each other to give a patient a very bad time.
I will acknowledge that xenon does appear to have interesting effects, but nobody should be base their health and safety on what the author has written. Their analysis on its safety is far far far too superficial to be worth anything.
The Xenon episode of Hamilton's Pharmacopeia is one of the very best episodes of that series, I don't know the best way to find it on streaming currently, it was available I believe on Netflix (or maybe it was Hulu?): https://www.vicetv.com/en_us/video/xenon-the-perfect-anesthe...
The full episode takes very disturbing twists and turns, worth a watch.
From season 3, they're all great, but besides the Xenon one I also remember "Ultra LSD" and "Synthetic Toad Venom Machine" being especially great episodes.
I've done Xenon a fair number of times, it is definitely the Rolls Royce of inhalants. I'd recommend it to anyone as long as you can divert a little and aren't paying for it yourself. If you don't have unlimited amounts of money, it simply is not worth it.
If you're looking for a great NMDA inhalant experience I'd recommend another classic 19th century anesthetic, diethyl ether. It is extremely simple to produce -- heat everclear and sulfuric acid together and distill. Adjust the PH afterwards. Anyone can make diethyl ether. The actual meat of the ether experience is actually on par with Xenon. I'd say the only element that makes it worse is the aftertaste.
It's still a tradition among Lemkos in the Carpathians (Slava Ukraini!) to drink ether. Drinking is a little trickier, as the boiling point of ether is lower than your body temperature. You should chew and swallow some crushed ice beforehand, and also serve a bit in a shotglass with some crushed ice and lemon shaved ice to offset the taste. I've also found pina colada mix to be a great accompaniment. If you're just starting out with ether I recommend just inhaling the vapor.
I think this is an unnecessarily polarized admonition. Alcohol is arguably more than possibly-lethal, but many people exercise a reasonable risk calculus that allows them to enjoy it, and even enjoy it to a low level to moderate excess (on occasion), and that doesn't necessarily indicate pathological drug abuse.
An unusual medically-safe (in medical contexts) anesthetic generating curiosity about recreational effects and safe use is not unreasonable, and having that curiosity certainly doesn't imply that someone is "not ok!"
I'm not saying that Xenon isn't exotic; it likely takes someone with a strong background in less-dangerous inhalant usage (and deep pockets) to use it safely. But there are plenty of exotic substances that people use safely and sanely throughout the world, and telling people off for having interest drawn from a (reasonably balanced, I would say) source ain't the business.
I'm not a xenon user, but I completely disagree with what you've said here. What is your point, that because xenon is hard to make it's an insane person's drug? You're implying a huge level of risk but TFA outright states that xenon is incredibly safe, which can't be said for ingesting carcinogens from combusted cannabis, or from drinking alcohol which can kill you in a single night pretty easily. Are you saying TFA is lying about the chemical safety of inhaling xenon?
Xenon gas is a pure element. It absolutely is going to leave your body exactly the way it entered, because your body has absolutely no ability to break down a pure non-reactive element into anything.
You seem to be responding to this as if it is saying that your brain is immune to injury from Xenon abuse, which is never a claim that the article made. It is clearly stated that oxygen deprivation through Xenon inhalation can cause death.
Now, 30 seconds of oxygen deprivation is sure to cause your brain to "starve" in the sense that oxygen levels will drop enough to affect your consciousness, but that's absolutely not enough oxygen deprivation to cause brain damage, given that the general method is to trip off of a single inhale, similarly to how Nitrous Oxide is used recreationally.
That's absolutely not true. It is already used in medical practice and mixing with oxygen, similar to how laughing gas is used, prevents hypoxia. These things are easy to google if you actually care to look
You should compare it with oxygen tents used to simulate training at high elevation. The risk of damage is more-documented from those compared to argon and xenon.
These days we have some theory about this. See Stuart Hameroff MD, a Professor of Anesthesiology and Psychology, and Director of the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona.
To sum it up from my limited understanding: This disturbs the quantum coherance in the microtubelies in all cells (But mostly nurons) which is needed for consciousness to "limit" itself to a identity.
eigenvalue|1 year ago
Apparently, Xenon does this by acting as an antagonist of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor, a subtype of glutamate receptor, and also by enhancing the effect of ("potentiation of") gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). Other drugs that act along the NMDA pathway are Ketamine and Memantine (an Alzheimer's drug). And other drugs that act along the GABA pathway are Benzodiazepines (e.g., Diazepam, Lorazepam-- i.e,. Valium). And apparently Nitrous Oxide (N2O) uses both mechanisms as well.
dkbrk|1 year ago
[0]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1130736/
whaleofatw2022|1 year ago
jaggederest|1 year ago
m3047|1 year ago
and apparently Gou Teng, used in traditional chinese medicine and for blood pressure control ("and" because TCM wasn't developed with blood pressure cuffs at hand).
dyauspitr|1 year ago
janalsncm|1 year ago
I stopped after recording myself taking it. I was unconscious a lot longer than I remembered being, and even though I was probably never at risk of suffocating there were long periods where I didn’t see myself breathing. That was enough.
I regret the effects it may have had on my brain. It’s impossible to know the counterfactual “what if” and maybe binge drinking was worse.
FuriouslyAdrift|1 year ago
https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ajp-rj.20...
DebtDeflation|1 year ago
That brings back memories. I remember one time falling off the bed I was sitting on, cracking my head on the concrete floor, and laying there thinking "this should really hurt, but it doesn't..........at all".
Tabular-Iceberg|1 year ago
Why don’t recreational nitrous users mix in some oxygen like medical users do?
nullc|1 year ago
Breathing inert gasses is extremely dangerous. It is not like holding your breath: because the gas you inhale is free of oxygen, it actively pulls oxygen out of your blood. Instead of thinking about breath holding, think more like the USCSB videos where someone walks into a space with a nitrogen atmosphere and immediately drop unconscious, then someone goes in to save the first person (already knowing about the danger) and they both die. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2ItJe2Incs ).
When narcotic gasses are used for anesthetic purposes they're used with a gas manifold that mixes in pure oxygen to achieve a gas mix that won't kill the subject. Even this is easy to get wrong, and a wrong mix due to a flat tank or an incorrect setting can kill someone very quickly and quietly.
It's also not clear to me how psychologically safe it is, I've seen at least one clearly unhinged person on twitter going on about their xenon use... but I dunno if the drug use lead to they psych issues or the psych issues lead the the drug use. or if their issue was just related to inadvertent oxygen deprivation as a side effect of their xenon use. Studies of anesthetic use may not tell us much about recreational use since they're presumably not dosing people daily or multiple times daily for weeks at a time. -- it's not like you can easily purchase single doses, that bottle isn't going to use itself!
sneak|1 year ago
nabilhat|1 year ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rd5j8mG24H4&t=418s
Loughla|1 year ago
pfdietz|1 year ago
Suspended in this gas, one could be subjected to much higher acceleration without injury, up the point that density differences in the body become important.
saagarjha|1 year ago
NoMoreNicksLeft|1 year ago
indoordin0saur|1 year ago
golergka|1 year ago
IsTom|1 year ago
lpribis|1 year ago
TFA talks about the effects coming on "within seconds" of inhalation, so it is clearly not just hypoxia which takes tens of seconds or minutes to manifest.
digging|1 year ago
pengaru|1 year ago
meindnoch|1 year ago
dyauspitr|1 year ago
schoen|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
ladams|1 year ago
[deleted]
pfdietz|1 year ago
nolist_policy|1 year ago
rhelz|1 year ago
peanut_worm|1 year ago
Erowid has some other records of it. Sounds like nitrous but probably better. I wonder if humans evolved to react this way to certain gases or if its a coincidence.
zoklet-enjoyer|1 year ago
There's a few of them on there https://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Xenon.shtml
javawizard|1 year ago
Uh, what?? No it doesn't.
I'm a hobbyist welder. When TIG welding you typically use 100% argon gas. I have a 60 cu ft cylinder hooked up to my welder right now; it costs $89 to refill at my local Airgas store.
That's approximately 5.2 cents per liter.
Here's a 40 cu ft tank of argon for sale on Amazon for $205: https://www.amazon.com/100-Argon-Welding-Tank-CGA/dp/B00I4Z6...
That's a new cylinder so most of the cost is the cylinder itself, but even then, that only comes out to 18.1 cents.
How on earth did TFA come up with $2/liter? Did they get liters and cubic feet mixed up while doing their research?
Etheryte|1 year ago
buildsjets|1 year ago
https://www.chem.purdue.edu/chemsafety/docs/equip/Manual_MVE...
aredox|1 year ago
DannyBee|1 year ago
He works for Airgas, clearly :)
I'm with you on pricing - i pay about the same.
Actually, Airgas has research grade xenon at $132/standard liter. So much more than they are claiming in the article.
Rastonbury|1 year ago
rajlego|1 year ago
My impression is that there are lots in Russia but you'd have to know Russian to find them.
swayvil|1 year ago
oofabz|1 year ago
jibbit|1 year ago
cannonpr|1 year ago
perihelions|1 year ago
It *will* kill you straight away–it's an asphyxiant gas, any mistake involving oxygen supply will kill you in a few minutes, or leave you incapacitated and brain-damaged for the rest of your life. It's somewhat more hazardous than most, because it's (substantially) heaver than air, and accumulates in lungs.
(And you can be certain there will be mistakes, because a large subgroup of the users will be binge-drinking escapism addicts experimenting alone, drunk, self-administering this anesthetic out of a party balloon. The substack's rose-tinted focus on "luxury clinics" whitewashes the nature of hard drug use).
Zenzero|1 year ago
> Xenon is considered “the perfect anesthetic” for 5 reasons:
> It’s extremely fast-acting — xenon gas kicks into full effect within seconds
> It wears off quickly — once the gas is removed, normal consciousness comes back within a minute or two
> It doesn’t interact with other drugs
> It leaves no lasting side effects or toxicity
> The anesthetic state xenon induces is extraordinarily powerful
The vast majority of drug incompatibilities are not a result of the physical interactions between the molecules. It's the undesirable effects that they exert in tandem on physiology. A vasodilator and a negative inotrope don't have to chemically react with each other to give a patient a very bad time.
I will acknowledge that xenon does appear to have interesting effects, but nobody should be base their health and safety on what the author has written. Their analysis on its safety is far far far too superficial to be worth anything.
fock|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
opprobium|1 year ago
The full episode takes very disturbing twists and turns, worth a watch.
time0ut|1 year ago
Edit: I think this is it but have not watched https://youtu.be/ZVahys8MWLo
The shorter clip is the one I was thinking about and my mind went right to it when I saw this article.
cypherpunks01|1 year ago
aaron695|1 year ago
[deleted]
greentxt|1 year ago
[deleted]
rabite|1 year ago
If you're looking for a great NMDA inhalant experience I'd recommend another classic 19th century anesthetic, diethyl ether. It is extremely simple to produce -- heat everclear and sulfuric acid together and distill. Adjust the PH afterwards. Anyone can make diethyl ether. The actual meat of the ether experience is actually on par with Xenon. I'd say the only element that makes it worse is the aftertaste.
It's still a tradition among Lemkos in the Carpathians (Slava Ukraini!) to drink ether. Drinking is a little trickier, as the boiling point of ether is lower than your body temperature. You should chew and swallow some crushed ice beforehand, and also serve a bit in a shotglass with some crushed ice and lemon shaved ice to offset the taste. I've also found pina colada mix to be a great accompaniment. If you're just starting out with ether I recommend just inhaling the vapor.
k8sagic|1 year ago
Is it like suddenly an lsd trip and than suddenly out again?
ossobuco|1 year ago
[deleted]
perihelions|1 year ago
[deleted]
jkingsman|1 year ago
An unusual medically-safe (in medical contexts) anesthetic generating curiosity about recreational effects and safe use is not unreasonable, and having that curiosity certainly doesn't imply that someone is "not ok!"
I'm not saying that Xenon isn't exotic; it likely takes someone with a strong background in less-dangerous inhalant usage (and deep pockets) to use it safely. But there are plenty of exotic substances that people use safely and sanely throughout the world, and telling people off for having interest drawn from a (reasonably balanced, I would say) source ain't the business.
smabie|1 year ago
Some people seek out risk because it makes life worth living.
Life is finite anyways so even if you are very careful you'll end up dead just like the rest of us.
alan-hn|1 year ago
digging|1 year ago
sneak|1 year ago
A desire to experiment with a relatively safe psychoactive on a 30 second basis doesn’t come near “pathological”.
rvba|1 year ago
I very doubt it is true. The article poorly hand waves later that a brain without oxygen will starve.
I bet shooting this crap for some short term high will burn your brain cells, even if mixed with oxygen.
opprobium|1 year ago
"How does xenon produce anaesthesia?" https://www.nature.com/articles/24525
It is not typically used in most countries because it is very expensive compared to alternatives, but it is approved in many countries for anesthesia: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3626616
I found this article very weak, but Xenon is quite a real drug.
RIMR|1 year ago
You seem to be responding to this as if it is saying that your brain is immune to injury from Xenon abuse, which is never a claim that the article made. It is clearly stated that oxygen deprivation through Xenon inhalation can cause death.
Now, 30 seconds of oxygen deprivation is sure to cause your brain to "starve" in the sense that oxygen levels will drop enough to affect your consciousness, but that's absolutely not enough oxygen deprivation to cause brain damage, given that the general method is to trip off of a single inhale, similarly to how Nitrous Oxide is used recreationally.
alan-hn|1 year ago
idiotsecant|1 year ago
ttyprintk|1 year ago
Arjuna144|1 year ago
To sum it up from my limited understanding: This disturbs the quantum coherance in the microtubelies in all cells (But mostly nurons) which is needed for consciousness to "limit" itself to a identity.
k8sagic|1 year ago
The way this dude throws around quantum and co is just esotherical.
meindnoch|1 year ago