Bankrupt N20 dealer tries to commit suicide huffing balloons in response to ban

Hoàn Kiếm, Hanoi –With his empire crumbling around him courtesy of Hanoi’s municipal administration, local man and infamous laughing gas dealer Nguyen Không Cười today attempted to commit suicide with one large N20 balloon.

“That’s it folks, show’s over – it’s the end of an era,” he told a reporter for The Durian between deep inhalations of the nitrous oxide – a substance recently outlawed by Hanoi authorities.

“I invested everything – absolutely everything – in laughing gas,” a distraught Nguyen confided, “It was supposed to be a safe investment, do you know where 90% of profits come from on Tạ Hiện? It’s not handjobs, I’ll tell you that right now!”

Claiming he had gone so far as to sell his dog to a restaurant to pay for industrial sized N20 canisters, Nguyen said the new ban had forced his hand and that he would go out laughing.

With the Ministry of Health backing the city-wide ban on funky balls, many N20-junkies, known locally as “ballbags,” have expressed concern for how they will fill the void in their personality left by laughing gas.

“Personally this was a wake-up call for me,” explained part-time English teacher and full-time reprobate Sharon Smalls, “I think balloons had just become such a huge part of my identity without me even realising it.”

“I’d wake up, sometime in the afternoon, and just huff straight from the canister that I’d had installed next to my bed,” she added, “This new law – it really made me think about my future in Vietnam, but it’s comforting to know that there are always going to be call centres in the UK I can return to.”

Our reporter didn’t have the heart to explain how automation would most likely deprive Smalls of any call centre-based employment within the next decade and neglected to weigh up the likelihood of her pimping herself out for just another sweet, sweet hit of nitrous oxide.

Noting that the transition to illegality would leave Hanoi a city coming down from the balloon induced highs, Gareth Quinn, founder of charity Suck On This announced the launch of a rehabilitation programme for those affected by the ban.

“While it’s hard to argue with the logic of banning nitrous oxide balloons in Hanoi, there will be a significant part of the population – particularly concentrated in Tây Hồ – who will need help adjusting to the change, which is why Suck On This is launching a helium balloon substitute clinic.”

Based on the supervised shooting galleries of Scotland, Suck On This aims to free ballbags of their addiction by gradually weening them off N20 and onto helium, a far less dangerous gas with more hilarious results.

This, according to Quinn, will be a holistic treatment that includes hitting patients around the head with a baton as they inhale helium.

“The baton, which has been designed to replicate the effects of laughing gas, will be wielded by trained professionals and the ultimate aim is to support the authorities’ decision in banning balloons,” explained Quinn.

For Nguyen Không Cười, this may be the end of the road – certainly of his business, although the success of his suicide attempt remains unclear as he still clung to conscious even after consuming several hundred balloons’ worth of nitrous oxide.

At press time the Union for Balloon Animal Artists sought to apply pressure to Hanoi to ensure their members would not be unfairly targeted in the crackdown.