Driver convicted in San Diego County’s first nitrous oxide DUI trial 46%
By Alex Riggins69% Sydney Brammer55%
8/7/2026, 5:00:17 AM
Keywords: Nitrous Oxide, Dui, Laughing Gas, Whippets, Driving Under The Influence, San Diego County, Court, Conviction, Legal, Crime
BS Summary: This article contains 20 faulty reasoning types, including Anecdotal, Framing Effect, and Availability Heuristic, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 14.3% saturation with 126 hits. Analysis detected 880 faulty-reasoning hits from 881 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 40.2% and a BS Rank of 46% (16,659 of 30,584 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 54.50% of the article peer group.
Following a trial last month that the City Attorney’s Office described as the first of its kind in San Diego County, a jury convicted a 34-year-old man on two misdemeanor counts related to driving under the influence of nitrous oxide, City Attorney Heather Ferbert’s office announced Thursday.
Over the last year, local authorities have sounded the alarm about a sharp rise in the recreational use of nitrous oxide, a fast-acting substance also known as “laughing gas” or “whippets” that's commonly used during medical and dental procedures.
Last October, District Attorney Summer Stephan said her office had filed three cases over the previous 11 months that involved the suspected use of nitrous oxide in connection with fatal traffic collisions.
And earlier this year, state Sen.
Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, co-authored a bill seeking to ban the sale of large nitrous oxide canisters for recreational use.
Ferbert said nitrous oxide, which produces a high that lasts just a few minutes, can increasingly be found for sale in smoke shops and other retail locations and is particularly dangerous because it's designed to deprive the brain of oxygen.
“Impairment is impairment.
It does not matter whether it comes from a bottle, a pill, or a canister,” Ferbert said in a statement.
“Even a few minutes behind the wheel while impaired is a few minutes too long.
It takes just moments for an impaired driver to lose control and catastrophically harm someone.”
According to Ferbert's office and court documents, the jury convicted the defendant on one count of driving under the influence of a drug and one count of possession of nitrous oxide with intent to inhale for purposes of intoxication.
On July 24, a San Diego judge sentenced the man to five years of probation.
The terms of his probation include mandatory DUI education classes and regular drug and alcohol testing.
“This verdict sends a clear message that driving under the influence of any substance endangers our community and will not be tolerated,” San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said in a statement.
Cases involving suspected nitrous oxide impairment date back years.
In 2011, a 20-year-old driver in Orange County was allegedly huffing nitrous oxide from a balloon just moments before he crashed at high speeds into a tree, killing one passenger and injuring himself and two others.
In 2013, federal authorities in Los Angeles raided at least 17 businesses, most of them auto repair shops, on suspicion that they were illegally selling nitrous oxide for use as a recreational drug.
In 2014, the son of a San Bernardino County mayor was killed in a crash in which the driver was allegedly high on nitrous oxide; that mayor’s city, Rialto, later became the first in the U.S. to ban certain sales of the substance.
But while nitrous oxide abuse is not new, authorities have said its use is on the rise, especially among young people.
The U.S.
Food and Drug Administration issued an advisory against its recreational use in March 2025, saying that it “can lead to serious adverse health events, including death.”
Jeff Lapoint, a medical toxicologist with Kaiser Southern California, said he sees about one or two cases a month.
He said the drug, which is an inhaled anesthetic, is intended for emergency medicine or dental procedures.
The effects don’t last long, Lapoint said, adding that he has had patients who have put trash bags over their heads to prolong the feeling.
He said a user could become unconscious at a certain dose.
“It’s euphoric,” Lapoint said.
“There’s no hangover; it’s quick on; it’s quick off.
It’s fairly cheap; it’s easy to obtain if (someone) can’t get alcohol.”
The case that Ferbert's office recently took to trial stemmed from an incident that occurred March 10, according to her office and court documents in the case.
That day, a San Diego police employee observed a driver lurching forward and backward several times with one of his tires up on a sidewalk before hitting a parked car, authorities said.
The police employee — an investigative service officer with no sworn law enforcement powers — then saw the driver inhale nitrous oxide from a canister and called for patrol officers to respond.
The patrol officers determined the defendant was under the influence of nitrous oxide, conducted a DUI investigation and found 10 canisters of the substance in his vehicle, according to Ferbert's office.
Both the city attorney and district attorney have said that prosecuting such cases can be difficult, since toxicology testing is unlikely to register a drug that so quickly moves in and then out of a user's system.
Ferbert said Deputy City Attorney Lauren Holt was able to convince the jury of the driver's guilt through evidence such as testimony from police officers and experts and the physical evidence recovered at the scene.
The driver entered a treatment program shortly after his arrest, according to Ferbert, who said the judge considered his progress in that program at sentencing.
“Accountability and recovery are not opposites,” the city attorney said.
“This defendant is doing the work, and the court took that into account.
Our job was to ensure accountability for the dangerous choice he made behind the wheel, and we're encouraged by his commitment to recovery.”
Speakers
6speakers51%attributed speech432writer words
Selected voice
100%flagged-word coverageSan Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl
32 attributed words7.1% of attributed speech56% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Analysis
Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.