Ice Cold Fatties - SF cops seize 100 Tanks of Nitrous Oxide at Grateful Dead Concert

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Ice Cold Fatties - In Grateful Dead parlance, this means oversized balloons full of nitrous oxide, offering concertgoers a quick high — one balloon for $20, two for $30. The deflated colorful balloons could be seen littering the ground surrounding the festival. Dealers were so pervasive that on Saturday night, the San Francisco Police Department spotted a trailer carrying 100 metal tanks, which were presumed to be filled with nitrous oxide, and arrested a Philadelphia man on suspicion of possessing and distributing the drug. Additionally, SFPD told SFGATE it issued three citations and booked one person into San Francisco County Jail.

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Nitrous oxide, also known as whippets, cuts off oxygen to the brain, resulting in a euphoric high that lasts a few minutes. It’s primarily used as a sedative by physicians and dentists. Nitrous oxide isn’t illegal to purchase since it does have practical applications, such as adding foamy texture to whipped cream, but distributing it for recreational use is illegal.

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The drug has a long association with the Grateful Dead. An oxygen mask used by band members as a delivery system for the drug was auctioned off on Sotheby’s in 2021. The squeal of a gas can be heard in the experimental song “Barbed Wire Whipping Party,” an outtake from the album “Aoxomoxoa,” and a black-and-white video shows the band sucking on a tank while in the studio. Jerry Garcia himself said the drug was the secret to unlocking one of the more psychedelic tracks on the album, “What’s Become of the Baby.”

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As for the Golden Gate park shows, balloon providers were in high supply, with purveyors seemingly every 5 yards yelping their signature call for “ice cold fatties!” By Sunday, however, the nitrous sellers had fallen into the shadows of the park. But at the end of Shakedown Street, the sound of a balloon filling with air could still be heard from the brush.

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