Tory MP: Don't Ban Poppers, I Use Them

January 21, 2016 6:50 PM

As the government debates the Psychoactive Substances Bill... A Conservative former minister has "outed" himself as a poppers user, amid warnings that a Government ban on the substance will harm the gay community and others. Crispin Blunt warned he and many gay men are "astonished" by the Government's proposals, adding respect for the law would "fly out the window" if a ban is implemented. Grauniad Article. Politics.co.uk. Legalcheek.
posted by marienbad (29 comments total)

I suppose his VHS heads are clogged?
posted by 3urypteris at 7:01 PM on January 21, 2016 [13 favorites]

"Choosing to ban this, which I have been using and I know has been used ... for decades, then respect for the law is going to fly out the window for people if that's the drug that they use."

Great! Has your personal connection to this proposed law influenced you to empathize with users of other relatively harmless psychoactive substances?

"Amendment five calls for poppers to be exempted from the Bill."

Guess not.
posted by Rangi at 7:02 PM on January 21, 2016 [26 favorites]

VHS heads are cleaned with IPA (Isopropyl Alcohol.) Poppers are Isopropyl Nitrate (or Butyl Nitrate) as far as I know. Amyl Nitrate is already illegal.
posted by marienbad at 7:19 PM on January 21, 2016

What is a popper?
posted by humanfont at 7:21 PM on January 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

"poppers are somehow still popular here in New Orleans which is SO FUCKING ADORABLE I can't stand it" - me, on Twitter during a vacation, six days ago.

I want to be able to spit out some sort of 2016 State of the Poppers Unions speech that unifies my gay thoughts in Chicago, my perceived thoughts of the city of New Orleans, and gay Tories in the UK, but I'm gonna let it sit for a while rather than come to any immediate conclusions. You might say, I'm gonna put the metaphorical cap back on so it doesn't spill everywhere.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 7:24 PM on January 21, 2016 [6 favorites]

Brave stance. Usually, in the face of new drug laws, conservatives such as this guy just continue to use their drug of choice in the sure and certain knowledge that the law isn't intending to target people like them.
posted by Jimbob at 7:24 PM on January 21, 2016 [15 favorites]

Poppers wikipedia
posted by XhaustedProphet at 7:25 PM on January 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

Health Canada made the sale of poppers illegal a year or two ago. It made a lot of gay men very upset.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 7:30 PM on January 21, 2016

A popper is a jalapeno pepper stuffed with cream cheese and deep fried. They are used for a short-term (~20 sec.) high that enhances sexual pleasure and are more or less harmless. They are especially popular in the gay community. Definitely not a party drug, if you're not actually in the middle of fucking they pretty much just raise your heartrate and make you mildly headachey.
posted by 3urypteris at 7:30 PM on January 21, 2016 [47 favorites]

I read that as "Amendment calls for five poppers to be exempted from the Bill."
posted by MysticMCJ at 7:30 PM on January 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

Won't these otherwise sensible members think not just of their own perverse pleasures, but of the children? Do they really want to see little Jack or Harry, high on poppers and having gay sex?
posted by Flashman at 7:38 PM on January 21, 2016

There's a weird authoritarianism I've seen in multiple countries (like the USA and in this case, the UK) where it doesn't actually matter what the properties of any substance actually are, or what is known, the only thing that matters is whether someone is enjoying it in any way that isn't nutrition-related. Anything used recreationally is automagically made into a catastrophic danger to society that MUST BE BANNED!

It doesn't hurt that there's always some dance-party/concert/rave kid that OD'ed on a cocktail of alcohol, meds, and everything else (s)he could find (including, according to gossip, the new substance), then passed out while dehydrated from dancing and ended up in hospital or worse. There's always a Think Of The Children to point at no-matter how much there actually isn't.

But it's weird just how knee-jerk the whole thing is. Is a substance being used recreationally but not for digestion? KILL IT WITH LEGAL FIRE!

Consequently, idiot party kids OD on alcohol and fly-spray (or whatever other industrial garbage can't be banned), chasing some shitty dangerous high because even the super-tame pleasant safe things became hard to get or expensive because of knee-jerk lawmaking.
posted by anonymisc at 8:16 PM on January 21, 2016 [19 favorites]

Poppers are party favors that are small firecrackers that emit confetti and a loud "pop"!

Gay men use them to celebrate being gay.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:37 PM on January 21, 2016 [29 favorites]

I was at a party a couple of weeks ago when someone broke out and passed around a couple of bottles of poppers. I've been to gatherings where needles and spoons, glass stems, DMT, and many many other illicit things have been used openly but for some reason this just struck me as really weird.

Yeah I'm acquainted with pretty much all the popular intoxicants but not poppers despite them being legal. I think the gay (and general sexual) association probably has something to do with why you don't see them at parties (outside, presumably, of gay/sex parties) now even though the likes of HST talked about them back in the day. Well also I've heard the nitrite inhalants now are not as good as the amyls from back in the day.
posted by atoxyl at 8:52 PM on January 21, 2016

when at the baths when i was 17-18, i would have them used without my consent, i would consent to the sex, and then suprise poppers, they stunk and gave me a headache....
posted by PinkMoose at 8:54 PM on January 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

Appears they're significantly more harmful than mushrooms or LSD, like they can actually burn your skin or something.
posted by jeffburdges at 10:09 PM on January 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

Right-wing politician says "Now this issue affects me personally, I can empathise with those whose lives it's going to affect".

See also: gay rights, legal aid cuts, etc etc
posted by metaBugs at 11:54 PM on January 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

Right-wing politician says "Now this issue affects me personally, I can empathise with those whose lives it's going to affect".

Yep, that and Nigel Evan's hypocrisy drives me insane. Have these people ever heard of Burke? Your goal as a politician is to be more informed about the things you are voting on then the general population, not only get upset about something when it personally effects you. I guess I'm glad you're taking a stand, but it just demonstrates how blind many politicians are to the actual effects of their laws.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 12:28 AM on January 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Brave stance. Usually, in the face of new drug laws, conservatives such as this guy just continue to use their drug of choice in the sure and certain knowledge that the law isn't intending to target people like them.

Except if you're a gay Tory, you can't really be sure. You're right that the law isn't targeting rich old Tory bastards, but it most definitely is targeting the gay and chemsex communities. This guy appears to be in both. (How does he live with the cognitive dissonance?)
posted by Dysk at 1:20 AM on January 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Surely he'll just be a better member of the Old Boys club - taking illegal substances seems to be pretty normal practice in the Houses of Parliament.

Good old George loves getting high. The mans in charge of our Money FFS.
posted by twistedonion at 1:23 AM on January 22, 2016

There are other poppers toluene which was available as a solid and one placed it in a paper bag and inhaled .
Than there is maximum impactt which is a super computer duster of which the user inhales
I actually thought maximum impact and similar products were outlawed
posted by robbyrobs at 3:07 AM on January 22, 2016

That Legal Cheek post has some outstanding comments.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 4:33 AM on January 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

There are other poppers toluene which was available as a solid and one placed it in a paper bag and inhaled .

Jesus, I've used toluene to clean up paint spills. It's nasty stuff and I guess it gives you a buzz but it's pretty much the same buzz you'd get from wacking your head with a mallet.
posted by octothorpe at 5:08 AM on January 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

Yeah, don't...don't inhale toluene. It's basically sniffing airplane glue (which uses toluene as a solvent), and it's super bad for you. From your link:

Toluene can cause brain, liver and kidney damage, hearing loss, memory impairment, and attention deficits. Death can result from heart failure, asphyxiation or aspiration. Toluene also owes its pharmacology to a mucosal irritant effect from an exothermic reaction with water. This results in vomiting, lacrimation and ocular burning, cough, chest pain, wheezing and possible interstitial edema, and kidney toxicity with tubular acidosis. Toluene exposure is also associated with a transient liver injury.

posted by Mr. Bad Example at 5:27 AM on January 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

BUT BLACK DYNAMITE - I SELL DRUGS IN THE COMMUNITY
posted by AAALASTAIR at 6:25 AM on January 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

“Turn the goddam music up! My heart feels like an alligator!”
posted by Splunge at 7:23 AM on January 22, 2016

Than there is maximum impactt which is a super computer duster of which the user inhales

Oh man I didn't know this one! Though I think I had heard about the peculiar popularity of ethyl chloride (related to e.g. chloroform and other halogenated anesthetics but then so are regular gas dusters and refrigerants) in Brazil.
posted by atoxyl at 12:00 PM on January 22, 2016

I regularly see poppers sold at liquor stores and gas stations around here, with all sorts of dubious claims, and the last time I looked up the ingredients in them, I came away with a bunch of NIH papers basically saying that they're solvents that will blind you and give you brain damage. Are amyl nitrites actually still available in the UK?

Like most drugs, I'm curious about trying them at least once, but I got my huffing over inadvertently with varnish in poorly ventilated theater shops, and I'm not eager to return to that.
posted by klangklangston at 12:25 PM on January 22, 2016

Are amyl nitrites actually still available in the UK?

I think most places amyl nitrite is not but isobutyl nitrite, cyclohexyl nitrite etc. are still sold. They're all solvents, really - you're not supposed to get them on your skin - but they function differently than huffing toluene.
posted by atoxyl at 1:37 PM on January 22, 2016