Once the stuff of harmless kitchen gadgets and party balloons, nitrous oxide — better known on the streets as “proto” or “laughing gas” — has exploded into a full-scale public health, legal, and environmental crisis in Belgium.
A recent investigation by Le Soir lays bare the scope of a black market stretching from night shops and bookshops to elite nightclubs and international shell companies. The evidence is hard to miss. Metallic canisters, each about 40 centimetres long, are now a regular feature of city sidewalks and public parks.
Once reserved for culinary use in whipped cream dispensers, these oversized cylinders — branded under names like Fastgas and Cream Deluxe — are being used en masse by young Belgians looking for a euphoric high that is cheap, quick, and dangerously accessible.
From Culinary Tool to Street Drug
Nitrous oxide’s journey from the kitchen to the club began innocently enough. Used medically as an anaesthetic and in professional kitchens for whipped toppings, it was never intended for recreational inhalation.
But by the mid-2010s, its use as a party drug had started to catch on — first in small cream chargers, then in industrial-sized cylinders now capable of filling hundreds of balloons.
As one former user told Le Soir, “One balloon, two, three… it kicks off the night. But it can also make you vomit, black out, or worse.” What once was a teenage dare has morphed into a booming business — and a growing societal menace.
A Legal Loophole You Could Drive a Van Through
The Belgian government officially banned recreational use of nitrous oxide in March 2024. The law imposes steep penalties — up to five years in prison for importing, storing, or selling the gas outside of medical or food-related purposes.
But there’s a catch that undermines enforcement: a buyer can still legally purchase nitrous oxide by simply claiming it’s for culinary use. No documentation or proof is required.
As a senior prosecutor, speaking under condition of anonymity, told Le Soir, “You’re only guilty if you confess.”
This loophole has turned enforcement into an exercise in absurdity. A night-shop owner selling multiple canisters to a group of teenagers on a Saturday night may technically be breaking the law.
But a man in a chef’s apron buying the same amount? Entirely legal. It’s a legal grey zone that traffickers — and users — have learned to exploit with ease.
Party Scenes, Bookshops, and the Big Hauls
The surreal nature of the crisis was crystallized one freezing night in January 2024 when police officers patrolling central Brussels noticed a van idling outside the iconic You Night Club on Duquesnoystraat. Inside the vehicle: 350 bottles of nitrous oxide. A raid on the club itself turned up 550 more.
It wasn’t an isolated event. In February, police seized 35 canisters at a Rue de la Loi nightclub. In April, they discovered dozens more in an upscale restaurant on Avenue Louise, as well as in bookshops and night shops across the city.
In one operation, officers seized 132 canisters from a Schaerbeek bookshop whose customers routinely exited with white shopping bags filled with gas bottles.
And yet, despite these busts, actual prosecution remains scarce. Only 10 cases made it to Belgian correctional courts in the five months following the March 2024 ban.
Authorities admit the law is difficult to enforce, and that most seizures result in confiscation but no legal action.
Environmental Impact: Brussels’ Exploding Incinerators
If the human toll isn’t enough to raise alarms, the environmental fallout should be.
Brussels’ main waste incinerator in Neder-Over-Heembeek is now facing unprecedented strain. Jérémy Hellemans, head of the city’s waste-to-energy facility, told Le Soir that the facility used to shut down a dozen times a year.
That figure has tripled. In 2024 alone, over 5,000 nitrous oxide canisters were pulled from waste streams in just ten days.
The issue is one of combustion: residual gas inside the metal cylinders heats up, expands, and explodes inside the incinerator, shattering the heavy iron bars that process waste.
Repairing these internal structures requires high-cost shutdowns and workers in heat-resistant suits. Hellemans says one recent week saw 15 bars destroyed.
The financial toll is immense. Each shutdown costs between €150,000 and €250,000. In 2024, the crisis drained €8.8 million from the Brussels Region’s waste management budget. By April 2025, the damage had already reached €2.5 million.
The Fastgas Empire
At the centre of the supply chain sits Fastgas, a company that once began as a side hustle by Dutch students promoting parties in Lloret de Mar.
Founded by Luciano De Vries, along with Nick Houwen and Jesse Van der Heide, the company capitalized on growing demand for euphoric highs at clubs and festivals.
By 2018, their informal operation had become a multinational enterprise. Today, Fastgas cylinders are seen across Europe, their bright branding unmistakably aimed at recreational users. Although both Belgium and the Netherlands have banned recreational use, enforcement gaps allow the trade to flourish.
Behind the façade of culinary legitimacy lies a corporate shell game. Fastgas is now managed through a web of offshore companies in Malta, Mauritius, and Poland.
The founders, who were convicted in Antwerp in 2021, deny any operational involvement today. From their rural hideaway in Portugal, they describe themselves as innocent entrepreneurs. One company website still describes De Vries as an “entrepreneur and philanthropist based in the enchanting setting of Lisbon, Portugal.”
Meanwhile, Global Catering Supplies, one of the firms linked to the network, posted €1.7 million in retained profits in 2022. The Fastgas website maintains that its products are for culinary use, but as Wolfgang Ettenauer of Austrian kitchenware supplier iSi notes, “One bottle would last ten years in a real kitchen.”
The Road Ahead
Belgian authorities are ramping up efforts to contain the crisis. Surveillance has increased around nightclubs, train stations, and high-risk urban zones.
Public awareness campaigns now warn of the health and environmental risks of recreational nitrous oxide use. Waste facilities are upgrading their furnaces with reinforced walls and sealed ports.
But significant challenges remain. The inability to enforce the law without a confession leaves police and prosecutors hamstrung. Even proposed solutions like shredding garbage bags before incineration — to detect hidden canisters — present logistical hurdles.
Ultimately, the issue has outgrown its party-drug origins. It now intersects with environmental management, public health, international corporate law, and criminal enforcement. And all the while, the silver canisters keep piling up.
The question that now looms large: how long can Belgium continue to look the other way? As nitrous oxide continues to shatter furnaces and sidestep legal definitions, the silence surrounding its explosive consequences may soon prove as combustible as the gas itself,
