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Popper is a slang term given broadly to the chemical class called alkyl nitrites, that are inhaled for recreational drug purposes, typically for the "high" or "rush" that the drug can create. Poppers have also been historically used for porn stars sexual encounters, initially within the gay community.

If you trace the bottle of amyl (a type of alkyl nitrite) through late 20th century history, you trace the legacies of gay culture on popular culture in the 20th century.

Poppers were part of club culture from the mid-1970s disco scene and returned to popularity the 1980s and 1990s rave scene.

Popper use has a relaxation effect on involuntary smooth muscles, such as those in the throat and anus. Most widely sold products include the original amyl nitrite (isoamyl nitrite, isopentyl nitrite), but also variants such as isobutyl nitrite, isopropyl nitrite (2-propyl nitrite, increasingly, after EU ban of the isobutyl form). In some countries, to evade anti-drug laws, poppers are labelled or packaged as room deodorizers, leather polish, or tape head cleaner.

History

This section needs expansion with: a sourced paragraph on the transition from its use in medicine to its use as a recreational drug. You can help by adding to it. (June 2016)

The French chemist Antoine Jérôme Balard synthesized amyl nitrite in 1844. Sir Thomas Lauder Brunton, a Scottish physician born in the year of amyl nitrite's first synthesis, famously pioneered its use to treat angina pectoris. Brunton was inspired by earlier work with the same agent, performed by Arthur Gamgee and Benjamin Ward Richardson. Brunton reasoned that the angina sufferer's pain and discomfort could be reduced by administering amyl nitrite—to dilate the coronary arteries of patients, thus improving blood flow to the heart muscle.

Although amyl nitrite is known to have been used recreationally as early as the 1960s, the poppers "craze" began around 1975. It was packaged and sold pharmaceutically in fragile glass ampoules wrapped in cloth sleeves which, when crushed or "popped" in the fingers, released the amyl nitrite for inhalation. Hence the colloquialism poppers. The term extended to the drug in any form as well as to other drugs with similar effects, e.g. butyl nitrite which is packaged under a variety of trade names in small bottles.

In the late 1970s Time and the Wall Street Journal reported that popper use among homosexual men began as a way to enhance sexual pleasure, but "quickly spread to avant-garde heterosexuals". A series of interviews conducted in the late 1970s revealed a wide spectrum of users.

Pharmacology and physiology

This section needs expansion with: a succinct, secondary sourced-statement of the physiologic impact of inhalation of alkyl nitrite-containing poppers. You can help by adding to it. (June 2016)

Inhaling nitrites relaxes smooth muscles throughout the body, including the sphincter muscles of the anus and the vagina. Smooth muscle surrounds the body's blood vessels and when relaxed causes these vessels to dilate resulting in an immediate increase in heart rate and blood flow throughout the body, producing a sensation of heat and excitement that usually lasts for a couple of minutes. When these vessels dilate, a further result is an immediate decrease in blood pressure.

Chemistry

Composition

Poppers contain a class of chemicals called alkyl nitrites.

To the extent that poppers products contain alkyl nitrites, the following applies.

Alkyl nitrite properties

The following table summarizes alkyl nitrite chemical and physical properties, including chemical structure:

Use

Administration

Poppers are inhaled.

This is typically done through the nasal or oral cavities, and any conditions which adversely affect the use of the respiratory system should be taken into account before administration commences.

Popularity

This section's factual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (June 2016)

Through the 1970s, use by minors has been described as minimal, due to the ban on sales to minors by major manufacturers (for public relations reasons), and because some jurisdictions regulate sales to minors by statute. A 1987 study commissioned by the United States Senate and conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services found that less than three per cent of the overall population had ever used poppers.

Interactions

Alkyl nitrites interact with other vasodilators, such as sildenafil (Viagra), vardenafil (Levitra), and tadalafil (Cialis), to cause a serious decrease in blood pressure, which can cause fainting, stroke, and low blood pressure leading to potential heart attack.

Side effects

Common side effects of popper abuse includes tachycardia, headaches, migraines, dizziness and fainting

Toxicity

The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy reports insignificant hazard associated with inhalation of alkyl nitrites, and British governmental guidance on the relative harmfulness of alkyl nitrites places them among the less harmful of recreational drugs.

Swallowing poppers (rather than inhaling the vapour) may cause cyanosis, unconsciousness, coma, and complications leading to death. Methemoglobinemia can occur if poppers have been swallowed. Accidental aspiration of amyl or butyl nitrites may cause lipoid pneumonia.

Isopropyl nitrite poppers may be a cause of maculopathy (eye damage), as reported in France and the United Kingdom. Some studies have concluded that there may be increased risk for at least temporary retinal damage with habitual popper use in certain users; in a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, an ophthalmologist described four cases in which recreational users of poppers suffered temporary changes in vision. Foveal (center-of-gaze) damage has also been described, in six habitual users of poppers. In 2014, optometrists and ophthalmologists reported having noticed an increase in vision loss in chronic popper users in the United Kingdom, associated with the substitution of isopropyl nitrite.

Controversial link with HIV/AIDS

Early in the AIDS crisis, widespread use of poppers among AIDS patients led to the later disproved hypothesis that poppers contributed to the development of Kaposi's sarcoma, a rare form of cancer, which occurs in AIDS patients. Modest, short-term reductions in immune function were observed in animal studies. A study examining men who have sex with men, and who also take recreational drugs, suggested poppers, when used in a pattern of recreational drug taking could be associated with increase in sexual risk-taking.

Legal status

Australia

It is illegal to sell poppers as inhalants in Australia, although some, including amyl nitrite, are often sold in sex shops labeled as DVD or leather cleaner.

In 2018 the Therapeutic Goods Administration TGA motioned to reschedule alkyl nitrites to be in the same category as heroin and cocaine. This was met by criticism from the LGBTIQ community for being discriminatory and further evidence was demanded and further consultation sought. A final decision was pushed back from November 29, 2018 to late January or early February 2019 for further consultation with the public.

European Union

Since 2007, reformulated poppers containing isopropyl nitrite are sold in Europe; isobutyl nitrite is prohibited.

France

In France, the sale of products containing butyl nitrite has been prohibited since 1990 on grounds of danger to consumers. In 2007, the government extended this prohibition to all alkyl nitrites that were not authorized for sale as drugs. After litigation by sex shop owners, this extension was quashed by the Council of State on the grounds that the government had failed to justify such a blanket prohibition: according to the court, the risks cited, concerning rare accidents often following abnormal usage, rather justified compulsory warnings on the packaging.

Germany, Austria, Switzerland

The possession in the German speaking countries is not subject to any regulations regarding anesthetic drugs and is therefore legal; however, the purchase, sale or trade of amyl nitrite without permission violates the drug laws of the corresponding countries. Occasionally, poppers were seized from sex shops, when sold there illegally.

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, poppers are sold in nightclubs, bars, sex shops, drug paraphernalia head shops, over the Internet, and in markets. It is illegal under Medicines Act 1968 to sell them advertised for human consumption. The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs noted in 2011 that poppers, rather than being psychoactive substance or 'legal high', "appear to fall within the scope of The Intoxicating Substances (Supply) Act 1985". The Psychoactive Substances Act 2016, scheduled to be enacted April 1, 2016, was initially claimed to impose a blanket ban on the production, import and distribution of all poppers. On January 20, 2016 a motion to exempt poppers (alkyl nitrites) from this legislation was defeated. This was opposed by Conservative MP Ben Howlett. Howlett's fellow Conservative MP Crispin Blunt declared that he has used and currently uses poppers. Manufacturers expressed concern over loss of business and potential unemployment. In March 2016, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs stated that, because alkyl nitrites do not directly stimulate or depress the central nervous system, poppers do not fall within the scope of the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016.

United States

In the US, amyl nitrite was originally marketed as a prescription drug in 1937 and remained so until 1960, when the Food and Drug Administration removed the prescription requirement due to its safety record. This requirement was reinstated in 1969, after observation of an increase in recreational use.

Other alkyl nitrites were outlawed in the US by Congress through the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988. The law includes an exception for commercial purpose, defined as any use other than for the production of consumer products containing volatile alkyl nitrites meant for inhaling or otherwise introducing volatile alkyl nitrites into the human body for euphoric or physical effects. The law came into effect in 1990.

See also

• Alcohol and sex
• Sex and drugs

References

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• Articles with obsolete information from June 2016
• Alkyl nitrites
• Antianginals
• Antidotes
• Dissociative drugs
• Drug culture
• Eli Lilly and Company
• Euphoriants
• Inhalants
• LGBT terminology
• Muscle relaxants
• Vasodilators
• AIDS origin hypotheses
• Sex and drugs