Laughing gas vendors – having a laugh at the law’s expense?

Balloons! Balloons!

Brick Lane in east London becomes Balloon Alley on a warm Summer night. You can’t miss the cries of the sellers, or the loud whoosh as they dispense nitrous oxide into large balloons.

It’s big business for the company Black Balloonz, that sprung up three years ago and is making hundreds of thousands of pounds from the rising demand for laughing gas. A legal high that was once the preserve at hippies at festivals and dubbed hippy crack, it is now increasingly urbanised.

Brick Lane is littered with spent balloons and empty canisters as weekend clubbers make it the party drug of choice.

Because as the police will tell you, through gritted teeth, there’s nothing they can do.

It’s not illegal for the sellers to supply the gas – which they get from canisters meant for squirty cream dispensers bought in their thousands over the internet – and sold in balloons for anyone over the age of 18. The law lags behind the balloon entrepreneurs, who are exploiting the legal confusion right under the noses of officers out on the beat.

We spent one Saturday night watching the army of sellers dotted down Brick Lane taking payments through chip and pin machines. By the power of the credit card they each sold hundreds to twenty-somethings seeking an euphoric three pound buzz that wouldn’t get them arrested.

And we watched the police stand guard, as party goers lost the power of their legs, stumbled into traffic and and fell into the arms of the sellers for the seconds the gas hit their bloodstream.

In the coming weeks, the sellers are building to the climax of their year: the Notting Hill Carnival, where they expect to make a quarter of a million pounds.

Black Balloonz is stockpiling thousands of the whipped cream canisters, ready for the huge spike in sales. But there’s another reason they’re hoarding the gas – they’re expecting the whole thing to be shut down – meaning no more balloons, no more giant profits from nitrous.

They want to make as much money as they can before the government decides they have had enough of them making a mockery of the law and their whole business model evaporates like laughing gas.