Crime Watch: Detroit takes the lead in battling whippets

Empty whippet containers are nothing new in Hamtramck.

By Charles Sercombe
You can file this one as kind of a crime, and kind of not.
One thing it is for sure, communities are increasingly finding out, is a nuisance.
Last year we reported on the phenomenon of club-going young adults – and teens – getting high off what’s commonly called “whippets.”
Whippets are small metal containers – the size of a large bullet – that contain nitrous oxide gas. Abusers then tap into them, and inhale the gas, getting high for a few moments.
They are normally used in whipped cream cannisters as a propellent.
Whippets are readily available at gas stations, markets, and, of course online – including on Amazon.
It is not illegal to sell them, but underage folks are not supposed to buy them.
Anyway, the thing about those little containers is that, once they are used, they are discarded. You can seem them in the city-owned parking lot on Caniff, or anywhere on the streets throughout town.
While this has been a problem in Hamtramck for awhile, it appears other cities are just now becoming aware of them – especially in southwest Detroit.
The online news publication Deadline Detroit recently reported on an effort in southwest Detroit to make folks more aware of the problem.
In Hamtramck, besides The Review reporting about the trend, little to nothing has been said by city officials.
Not so in southwest Detroit.
Deadline Detroit quoted Frank Venegas Jr., of “The Southwest Detroit Whippet Wipe Out Campaign,” as saying:
“This behavior can be incredibly dangerous — and even fatal in some instances — and creates a public safety issue when thousands of empty cartridges are littered in our streets and parking lots.
“The small cartridges get in our tires and cause flats and blow-outs and is a danger to pedestrians, cyclists and those traveling on scooters.”
We have only one (tongue-in-cheek) suggestion for Hamtramck officials, who have not become aware of the littering problem of this issue. Why not take a metal detector, collect all the empty whippet containers, and use them to fill the large potholes at the Caniff parking lot?
At least then they will be put to good use.
Posted Oct. 2, 2020