Butane
Pronunciation:BYOO-tain
Chemical Abstracts Service Registry Number:106-97-8
Formal Names:Butyl Hydride, Liquefied Petroleum Gas, Methylethylmethane,
Pyrofax
Type:Inhalant.Seepage 26
Federal Schedule Listing:Unlisted
USA Availability:Nonprescription chemical
Pregnancy Category:None
Uses.Some recreational use is for psychic effects: During butane intoxica-
tion, time may appear to pass more slowly, and thoughts may seem to come
faster. Other recreational usage has nothing to do with altered consciousness:
Some persons ingest butane to perform the stunt of fire breathing, appearing
to exhale flames by filling the mouth with butane and then exhaling over a
flame source.
Drawbacks.Inhaling butane to achieve euphoria, hallucinations, and sen-
sory distortion is one of the riskier forms of substance abuse. The amount
required for hallucinatory action can be close to a lethal dose, making a slight
miscalculation fatal.
Users have complained of headache and coughing. Lung injury is reported,
ranging from fluid build-up and congestion to impaired breathing function
and lung collapse. Unwanted effects can also include cardiac arrest, from
which persons can seldom be resuscitated. A case report tells of a 14-year-old
male who suffered a heart attack due to inhaling butane. Another case report
describes a teenager who became paralyzed on one side of the body due to
butane inhalation. Explosion is a common misadventure; one hospital in South
Korea found that 1.6% of all flame burn patients had been abusing butane.
Most were teenagers. Accidents often happened in a group setting in bed-
rooms or motel rooms. Burns typically covered more than 25% of the body:
face, hands, arms, midsection. About half the victims required skin grafts, and
the overall death rate was just over 10%. An American case study noted how
treacherous treatment can be for such injuries. A female was hospitalized after
striking a match in a closed vehicle while inhaling butane. She was released
after a couple of days but died a week later. In addition to external burns, the
explosion had burned interior airways into the lungs, an injury that gradually