British company hiring 'Gas Girls' to sell deadly 'Hippy Crack' to boozed up Brits abroad as laughing gas guzzlers plague Mediterranean holiday islands

  • It is illegal to sell nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas, for recreational use 
  • In Britain it has contributed to the deaths of eight people last year 
  • Medical experts said the substance can cause serious damage and even death

A British company is brazenly recruiting teenagers as ‘gas girls’ to sell a potentially deadly drug nicknamed ‘hippy crack’ in holiday islands across the Mediterranean, a Mail on Sunday investigation can reveal.

It is illegal to sell nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas, for recreational use in many European countries, including Britain where it contributed to the deaths of eight people last year.

Yet Lancashire-based PlayaWay Abroad lures hundreds of young people fresh from end-of-year exams to sell ‘hippy crack’ in Spanish and Greek holiday resorts, promising recruits in an online advert that they ‘will spend most of your working hours laughing.’

Revellers looking light headed on the Malia strip known as the jungle after inhaling the laughing gas from balloons

Revellers looking light headed on the Malia strip known as the jungle after inhaling the laughing gas from balloons

Gas girls sit at the bar and inflate thousands of balloons every night at The R&B Bar which claimed to sell 5000 in a single night

Gas girls sit at the bar and inflate thousands of balloons every night at The R&B Bar which claimed to sell 5000 in a single night

Slumped: Young people from Britain are among those selling laughing gas balloons in Malia nightclub on the island of Crete, Greece to young English kids

Slumped: Young people from Britain are among those selling laughing gas balloons in Malia nightclub on the island of Crete, Greece to young English kids

But, in a dire warning that will send shivers down the spines of parents preparing to wave off teenagers heading to sun-kissed resorts to celebrate the completion of exams, medical experts said the substance can cause serious damage and even death, particularly when combined with alcohol.

Posing as a potential ‘gas girl’ recruit in the popular Cretan resort of Malia, our undercover reporter exposed PlayaWay Abroad staff who:

  • When asked if sellers should check the age of customers, replied: ‘No, it’s Malia’; 
  • Encouraged our reporter to sell gas to customers even if they were ‘wasted’;
  • Told her that she could sell ‘unlimited’ amounts of the gas;
  • Claimed the law surrounding nitrous oxide was a ‘grey area’ when in fact it is illegal to sell it for recreational use.

PlayaWay, an employment agency run by 31-year-old businessman Rick Dawson from Colne, Burnley, targets young people seeking a working holiday in one of six resorts: Malia and Zante in Greece, Ayia Napa in Cyprus and Magaluf, Ibiza and Tenerife in Spain.

Under the jobs section of the firm’s website, which features photographs and videos of smiling, suntanned youngsters, is a section labelled ‘Laughing Gas Crew’ with hours from 11pm to 5am and pay from 20 to 80 euros a night. Despite the season not yet being in full flow, we found Malia’s bars and clubs rammed with teenagers as young as 16. Many were already drunk by the time they started buying balloons filled with nitrous oxide from scantily-clad ‘gas girls’.

Shouting above the deafening music, one vendor – not employed by PlayaWay – boasted of selling nine balloons to a holidaymaker who promptly inhaled them one after another. ‘It’s up to them. I don’t really care,’ she replied when asked if she had been worried.

Jodie, a 17-year-old girl from Scotland who recently finished her Highers, had already spent 100 euros on the balloons, priced at five euros for two.

‘You can do about 20 in a night and you don’t get a hangover,’ she said. 

Our reporter was ‘interviewed’ by phone for the job by Dawson who showed a shameless disregard for the dangers of nitrous oxide.

Young people looking for fun have no idea of the risks of 'hippy crack' 

Nitrous oxide is used safely in a medical context by highly trained anaesthetists in a controlled and monitored environment for its pain relief and anaesthetic properties.

However, the Royal College of Anaesthetists is concerned about the dangers of recreational use outside of a medical environment, for which there are significant immediate and longer-term risks.

When you inhale nitrous oxide it is quickly absorbed in the body. It has an instant effect on the brain resulting in euphoria, relaxation, dizziness, difficulty in thinking straight and even hallucinations.

Through its anaesthetic effect, nitrous oxide can cause unconsciousness, especially with other sedatives such as alcohol.

Without a trained person to assist and support their airway and breathing, people can die as a result of unconsciousness. If nitrous oxide is used in an enclosed space or with a plastic bag, the lack of oxygen can cause cardiac arrest and death by asphyxiation.

Long-term use of nitrous oxide can cause vitamin B12 deficiency, anaemia and nerve damage.

Advertisement

Asked if she should ask for ID as proof of age, Dawson laughed: ‘No, not at all – it’s Malia! Trust me, if they’re allowed in the club, they’re allowed to do what they like.

‘They’re allowed to have alcohol and obviously laughing gas or whatever. That’s the security’s job, isn’t it?’

Asked if there was any limit to the number of balloons she could sell to an individual, he replied: ‘It’s unlimited, yeah’.

He urged our female reporter to charm male customers into buying balloons for her too.

‘You’ve got to get someone to buy one of them for you,’ he said.

‘That’s the idea. You go to a group of lads, “Oh, lads are you buying me one too?”’

Laughing, he said: ‘And you have one and you get commission for it!’

Asked if the sale of the balloons was legal, Dawson paused before saying: ‘It’s a grey area, that’s the best way to put it – like it is everywhere in the world.

‘But if you’re asking if you’re going to get in trouble, no.’ In fact, it is illegal in the UK to sell nitrous oxide if the seller knows or is reckless about whether a substance is likely to be consumed for its psychoactive effects.

The maximum penalty is seven years in jail.

In Greece, similar laws prevent the sale of nitrous oxide for recreational use but, as our reporter witnessed, police officers cruised past hordes of youngsters inhaling from balloons, and the rules are poorly enforced.

Hours after watching some young holidaymakers slump to the ground after taking ‘hippy crack’, our reporter met local PlayaWay rep Ugne, a 20-year-old from Lithuania, and her British friend Summer, 23, a former PlayaWay worker, in a bar.

PlayaWay rep Ugne Baltrenaite said: 'With the balloon girls, it's about smiling'

PlayaWay rep Ugne Baltrenaite said: 'With the balloon girls, it's about smiling'

Our reporter asked: ‘When you get someone who is absolutely wasted coming up, can you still serve them?’

Summer: ‘Yeah.’

Ugne: ‘Yeah, yeah.’

Summer: ‘If they’re steaming and they want a balloon, as long as you have got that five euros in your bum bag before – always take the money first, before you give them the balloons.’ Reporter: ‘So it’s their problem?’

Summer: ‘Yeah.’

Ugne: ‘Literally.’

Nitrous oxide is widely sold in the UK and Greece and also online. It comes in small pressurised capsules designed for the catering trade as a propellant in whipped cream dispensers.

For recreational use, the capsules are put into a screwtop plastic tube which pierces the top of the capsule. A balloon is then stretched over one end and inflated. Users take gulps of the gas, resulting in a ‘high’ lasting for about a minute and likened to a snort of cocaine. Online retailers seek to sidestep the law by advertising the capsules for use in cream dispensers.

At a convenience store in Malia this weekend, an assistant sold our reporter capsules kept under the counter. ‘Quickly, put them away in your bag,’ she hissed as she handed over packets reading ‘Sparkwhip – 10 cream chargers.’

Dawson is proud of his business acumen, boasting on his LinkedIn site that he has grown PlayaWay Abroad over 12 years and helped more than 15,000 young people to find work abroad. Without a hint of irony, he adds: ‘I can honestly say you’re in safe hands!’

Recruits pay the firm up to £499 to cover a four-week stay in dormitory-style quarters, airport transfer and a guaranteed job. Other jobs include bar work, ‘jelly shot girls’, serving alcohol-infused jelly, and handing out fliers for bars and clubs.

Some quickly become disenchanted. Perched on a bar stool, one ‘gas girl’ working for a rival employer said: ‘It’s actually really hard work and I am so tired. I have all these blisters from the canisters... I’m leaving next week because I don’t feel safe here.’

Confronted with our evidence yesterday, Dawson nonchalantly said: ‘You’ve done a good job, fair play.’

Asked why he was arranging people to sell dangerous nitrous oxide, he replied: ‘You are correct, it has caused deaths, but not by the way it is consumed over in the resorts where they are in capsules. You can’t die from a capsule.’

But Dawson is wrong. Medical experts say that inhaling nitrous oxide in any quantity poses a potential health risk, particularly when combined with alcohol.

Challenged about selling ‘hippy crack’ to those already ‘wasted’ due to heavy drinking, Dawson questioned our reporter’s behaviour, saying: ‘The way you’ve gone about this is quite devious.’

The comments below have not been moderated.

The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.

We are no longer accepting comments on this article.