Chances are you probably don’t need a website to tell you that something you inhale from a small bottle is harmful.  Perhaps you enjoy it.  Perhaps you know it’s wrong but you have come to depend on it every time you have sex and without it, sex is not… well sex. Perhaps it’s gotten to the stage where you are masturbating to porn while sniffing this drug, taking in dangerous amounts of a fumes from a small bottle into your system.

If you have ever in the past tipped the contents down the toilet or discarded the bottle and said no more – you know deep down that it’s wrong and harmful… But once again you keep coming back to it and you keep telling yourself that there is no danger involved and that the majority of articles you’ve read online stating that there is a potential for brain damage or other serious effects and potential death simply aren’t really true.  It’s amyl say to yourself and it has been used for over a century to treat Angina.  

You then hear that there are other nitrites out there and you question what nitrite you had in your bottle. You hear that people are starting to loose their vision and the ability to focus on text with a certain different type of nitrite – but you keep telling yourself that the companies who make these products would have your health as their priority and wouldn’t sell you a chemical that would do you harm.

You see the small label saying ‘not for human consumption’ and you know that that’s them covering themselves in case something was to happen.  You come across an article that mentions that the Australian government did a test on store bought poppers and found that the labels were found to be misleading and had different chemicals in some of the bottles compared to the CAS number listed.  You start to get nervous about what your sniffing but every time you ask your community about the dangers involved you have people telling you that they have done it for years without any issues – you hear of some even wearing a gas mask because they like being under the influence of poppers for long periods of time. When you see anyone that speaks out against poppers suddenly you have a community that becomes very hostile, angry and abusive – they get attacked that anyone would put something out there damaging or concerning about poppers.

After all poppers comes in as the third largest drug used by the queer community, just behind Alcohol and Cigarettes and that taking it away or threatening to label it as anything such as toxic is an attack on the queer community themselves – almost like it’s a civil rights issue.   You presume that this drug is not like other Inhalent’s that you’ve read about but you pause and question why governments would want to ban it and schedule it in the same class as some of the harder drugs like cocaine and ecstasy.

You attempt to contact one of the manufacturers such as Lockeroom Marketing who are famous for ‘Jungle Juice’ one of the most popular room deodorizers to ask what they put in their products but instead they ignore you asking you to contact the distributor.  You question whether or not they really believe that their customer base consists of queer people who have an obsession with polishing their leather harnesses in night clubs, an ongoing nostalgic use of VCRs, and wanting their home to smell like a pungent volatile substance such as dirty socks.

You then begin to loose a little bit of faith in humanity when you begin to realise that maybe these companies know what guys get up to with their product and the damage it does to them both physically and mentally but they continue to sell the products with their small disclaimer for legal reasons but knowing the sole reason people are buying them is to get a high.  It takes a special kind of person to own or work for a company like that knowing the harm that it does yet continuing to tell yourself that it’s being used to clean those VHS tapes that everyone still has.  One would have to wonder what was on Joe Miller’s mind (famous popper maker) when he took his own life back in 2010 after he overdosed on poppers himself.

The aim of this website is to present to those who use poppers that there is a danger to it and to try to be a place where people can share their experiences with the impact that poppers have had on their lives.  Unfortunately there seems to be a growing amount of young men that are getting involved with poppers thinking that it is harmless and safe due to lack of knowledge as well as information out there on the side effects.  There is a wide variety of issues by users being reported including eye issues, skin issues, mental health issues, addiction issues, lung issues, nervous system issues as well as neurological damage.  At some point in time the queer community decided that they were OK with companies selling them solvents for them to inhale and to this day that right and those companies are protected by the one community that they are harming.

While medical grade amyl nitrite might not have a lot of the concerning side effects that the alternative nitrites have the fact is you don’t know what you are getting in your bottle. How much integrity do you think these companies have that sell you this cleaner to clean your VHS tapes with or your leather? What purity is their product? What quality control methods are being used? Are you getting other harmful and toxic chemicals as well? Do you feel as though if companies are supplying isopropyl nitrite as their main ingredient in poppers knowing it will be inhaled that they could give a warning about popper maculopathy (eye issues) but instead they continue to use that chemical anyway.  Furthermore, if you had a customer contact who was enquiring about the type of chemical in your product would you decide to ignore them for over 5 months without assisting whatsoever.  How much faith and trust would you have in a company that exhibits this type of behaviour.

The brain is one of the most amazing ‘super computers’ in the galaxy and controls everything from your thoughts, your moods, your feelings, your drive, your senses, your movement, your sleep.  If there was a small chance that you could harm yourself by doing poppers, would you still take the risk?  How important to you are your eyes?  What if you couldn’t read the text in front of you because you had inhaled a bottle of poppers and you’ve had trouble focusing on text ever since.  Some have said they have been attacked by members of the queer community over warning about the dangers of amyl as well as having their contents removed or censored.  Shouldn’t you at least be aware of the consequences or dangers associated with it and hear from other people before you question whether you want to risk your health? If you told a GP that you were doing poppers, do you feel that they should warn you or discourage you from doing an inhalent? What makes it different from inhaling any other other chemicals like Glue or nail polish remover? Companies are using different nitrites and chemicals to get around local laws and regulations by passing them off as VHS and leather cleaners as well as room deodorizers.  On the Canadian government’s health website as well as the TGA authority in Australia both mention poppers being toxic.  

Next time someone you know wants to take a sniff out of a bottle with mysterious contents think about this website but more importantly tell them about this website.  This website will be regularly updated and we are looking for doctors, medical professionals as well as people that have used ‘poppers’ to get in contact with us and share their stories / lend their expertise.  Let’s just call it what it is and stop trying to defend a drug that this community is for some reason so protective about yet these companies are trying to warn people about.  Email us at [email protected] with any stories or reports you have that can be added to this website.