U.S. Food and Drug
Administration
FDA Consumer magazine
May-June 2001
Table of Contents
By Michelle Meadows
An Arizona man has been sentenced to 15 months in prison and fined $40,000 for selling nitrous oxide, popularly known as laughing gas, with the intent to mislead government officials.
Chief Judge Samuel G. Wilson, of the Western District of Virginia, sentenced Lawrence Teiman of Tempe, Ariz., in March 2001 to close a case that began with the death of a student at Virginia Polytechnic Institute.
Teiman sold the gas, in the form of whipped cream chargers--also known as "whippets"--along with various drug paraphernalia at his store, Shirts 'n' Things, and through a Web site called Bongmart.com. The FDA's Office of Criminal Investigations (OCI) participated in the investigation of Teiman's activities because they violated the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
By selling nitrous oxide whipped cream chargers as a drug to be inhaled, Teiman delivered a misbranded drug into interstate commerce. The nitrous oxide was misbranded because it wasn't adequately labeled with directions for use and warnings about the dangers of inhaling the gas, according to Horace Coleman, the special agent in charge for OCI in the metropolitan Washington, D.C., field office. "Teiman would write 'for food use only' on the shipments as a way to conceal that they were really for drug use," Coleman says.
Nitrous oxide commonly is used in the food industry as a propellant for whipped cream, and as an anesthetic in medical and dental procedures. But some have inhaled the gas to get high, a practice that can cause slurred speech, difficulty maintaining balance or walking, slow responsiveness, impaired reaction to stimuli such as pain and loud noises, lapses into unconsciousness, and death by a lack of oxygen in the blood (asphyxiation).
Investigators discovered Teiman's activities after Andrew McCoy, a 20-year-old student at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, was found dead in his apartment in November 1999. McCoy died of asphyxiation from inhaling nitrous oxide he had purchased from Teiman. The Blacksburg, Va., police department found nitrous oxide cartridges in McCoy's apartment.
The boxes were labeled "ISI Cream Chargers," and the side of the boxes stated that the nitrous oxide was "specifically made for making whipped cream in ISI Cream Whippers." Investigators also found a "cracker," an aluminum device that is used to puncture the top of the nitrous oxide cartridge so the gas can be released into a balloon and inhaled. A shipping box under McCoy's bed listed Teiman's address and indicated that the nitrous oxide and other devices came from Shirts 'n' Things.
A key piece of evidence in the case was a copy of an invoice that verified McCoy's order, Coleman says. Someone from Teiman's operation faxed the invoice after a detective from the Blacksburg Police Department, posing as McCoy, called Shirts 'n' Things and requested the invoice to make sure he got what he ordered.
In December 1999, FDA special agents searched Shirts 'n' Things in Tempe, and seized numerous boxes of nitrous oxide cartridges in the form of cream chargers, plastic and aluminum "crackers," and "punching bag" style balloons. Teiman also sold other drug paraphernalia, including rolling paper and water pipes, commonly known as bongs.
Teiman will serve his 15-month sentence in a federal prison in Las Vegas.
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2001-May-08.