Sleeping or Hallucinogenic Gas

kellycoinguy · Aug 27, 2013

In my story, I need a gas that will put a number of people to sleep or into a hallucinogenic state for at least a few minutes. I need it to be very concentrated because the delivery system needs to be small. I imagine a small gas tank like an oxygen tank or maybe as big as a scuba tank.

The space containing those to be gassed is around 150,000 cubic feet. I need it to be safe so that nobody would die if the concentration were higher in some area than another.

I was thinking about using Halothane since it can be acquired in third world countries for veterinary use.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halothane

But I'm not sure how much would be needed for the volume, and whether it would be overly dangerous. Maybe I'm fretting about nothing, but I really like to be technically accurate and even if an anesthesiologist is reading my book, I don't want this to be distracting to him.

Any comments? Suggestions?

Zombolly · Aug 27, 2013

Why not laughing gas? It about put me to sleep at the dentist from breathing too deeply. It also clears out of the system pretty quickly.

waylander · Aug 27, 2013

It is going to be very difficult to deliver the gas such that everyone goes to sleep and wakes up again. What is a safe dose for a 55Kg person won't put a 100kg person to sleep, but the dose sufficient to anaethetise the 100kg person could kill your 55kg person.
The Russians demonstrated this some years back when Chechen terrorists seized hostages in a Moscow theatre.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis

Plot Device · Aug 27, 2013

I spent the summer in Ireland in 1992. I was having tea with a friend in Dublin one afternoon who said there was a new scam in town making the news. It involved gas.

In Ireland, people sleep at night with their windows open, and there are no screens on their windows. So you will always see second floor windows everywhere in Ireland which remain open all night long, no screens, and sometimes the curtains will flutter out from the sill, demonstrating quite clearly that there is nothing in the window but open air. So a bunch if burglars capitalized on that. They would wait until the lights in a given house went out, then tip a ladder up against the house by an open window, stick a hose in, gas the room, then after everyone was asleep they'd creep in and steal everything. The homeowners would awaken the next day with terrible headaches and everything was gone.

I do not know if anyone died. I don't know if the thieves were ever caught. I don't know if the gas itself was ever identified. I don't know what the dosage of the gas was. But that was the story I was told during the summer of 1992 in Ireland.

asnys · Aug 27, 2013

This was years ago, so I may be misremembering, but I read in a book on non-lethal weapons that a sleeping gas of the type you're looking for doesn't exist at present. The concentration will either be so low that some people won't be knocked out, or so high that some people will be killed by it. But, again, it was years ago so I may be wrong.

Something like BZ might work if all you want is to incapacitate them, though. And I've heard on the net the CIA experimented with aerosolized LSD back in the 50s, although I have no idea if that's true.

Maryn · Aug 28, 2013

If it's a work of fiction, you might be best off inventing a gas which does exactly what your plot requires. You can give it some negative side effects to make it more realistic.

Maryn, who just makes stuff up

wendymarlowe · Aug 28, 2013

I'm doubtful that something as small as an oxygen tank would be able to gas 150K cubic feet - that's a room the size of half a football field. You'd need some sort of distribution method, and since the gas wouldn't be evenly distributed at first, you'd get the area near the tank with a very high concentration of the gas and the far corners of the room with nearly nothing - a recipe to definitely kill people nearby. Also, you'd need a way to spread the gas out - if you want people unconscious for only a few minutes, I assume the gas has to act fast? But anything capable of spreading it out quickly would create quite a bit of heat (think airbags in cars), which is also an explosion issue even if the gas itself isn't flammable.

Have you considered something more like a smoke bomb, or a series of them?

kellycoinguy · Aug 29, 2013

Zombolly said:
Why not laughing gas? It about put me to sleep at the dentist from breathing too deeply. It also clears out of the system pretty quickly.

Laughing gas makes you not care so much at the time, but you remember what happened later. I need something with a bit more effect than that.

waylander · Aug 29, 2013

I don't think this can be done the way you want it, if you are going for scientific accuracy.

kellycoinguy · Aug 29, 2013

waylander said:
It is going to be very difficult to deliver the gas such that everyone goes to sleep and wakes up again. What is a safe dose for a 55Kg person won't put a 100kg person to sleep, but the dose sufficient to anaethetise the 100kg person could kill your 55kg person.
The Russians demonstrated this some years back when Chechen terrorists seized hostages in a Moscow theatre.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis

All of my "victims" are adult males, so that would not be a problem. The chemical used in the Moscow theatre, whatever it was sounds pretty promising acutally.

waylander · Aug 29, 2013

Depending on how many casualties you are prepared to accept.

kellycoinguy · Aug 29, 2013

wendymarlowe said:
You'd need some sort of distribution method, and since the gas wouldn't be evenly distributed at first, you'd get the area near the tank with a very high concentration of the gas and the far corners of the room with nearly nothing - a recipe to definitely kill people nearby. Also, you'd need a way to spread the gas out - if you want people unconscious for only a few minutes, I assume the gas has to act fast?

Because my "room" is actually a submarine, I'm depending on the air distribution system of the sub to be efficient. Didn't want to give away too many details of my plot... or get funny answers, so I didn't mention it previously.

kellycoinguy · Aug 29, 2013

waylander said:
I don't think this can be done the way you want it, if you are going for scientific accuracy.

I'm pretty sure I can get scientific accuracy because of the circumstances, which are a bit weird. We shall see.

kellycoinguy · Aug 29, 2013

waylander said:
Depending on how many casualties you are prepared to accept.

I have a crew of known size in a submarine. I don't really care if I kill some of them, as they are bad guys, but I want at least some of them to wake up, and proceed without knowing what happened. They could shrug it off as CO2 poisoning, it's an old submarine after all... LOL

Torgo · Aug 29, 2013

BZ is a very interesting nerve agent - I do recommend the Wiki article asnys linked above. It's particularly interesting for fiction because it doesn't just knock people out - it has all kinds of wacky behavioural effects. It also comes on slowly, lasts a long time, appears to be unlikely to kill people, and is odourless and nonirritating. You could easily take out a sub for a few days by getting it into the air supply, and it's possible it might not be pegged as a deliberate gas attack after the event so much as something wrong in the air mix (nitrogen intoxication and CO poisoning, or something?)

Sleeping or Hallucinogenic Gas

kellycoinguy

Zombolly

waylander

Who's going for a beer?

Plot Device

A woman said to write like a man.

asnys

Do Not Fear the Future

Maryn

Baaa!

wendymarlowe

writer, mother, geek

kellycoinguy

waylander

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kellycoinguy

waylander

Who's going for a beer?

kellycoinguy

kellycoinguy

kellycoinguy

Torgo

Formerly Phantom of Krankor.