Every party needs balloons. These just happen to be filled with laughing gas.

“We don’t do it that often. It’s funny for about 30 seconds,” said a concertgoer outside Red Rocks Amphitheatre, who was preparing to inhale nitrous oxide from a balloon before The String Cheese Incident played there in mid-July. She requested anonymity for fear of job reprisal. “There’s not really that much thought to it. It’s a stupid drug. The dumbest out of them all.”

Perched in the bed of a silver pick-up with friends in Lower South Lot 1, the 20-something woman pinched the end of the pastel blue balloon as she brought it to her lips, then inhaled until the balloon went limp. A minute or so of euphoric wooziness followed, and her voice briefly dropped in pitch due to the density of the gas. Elsewhere in th

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