Whippets is a reference to inhaling the nitrous which causes a short temporary high (so you have to keep doing them I guess). I didn't know what they were until I helped out a friend who GM'd a hotel. They needed a maintenance guy and I just moved there so I took it for a few months and trained their new guy or w.e. (I don't know shit about hotels but mostly it is just standard plumbing and electrical issues). Had a leak on the first floor coming into the gym. Traced it back upstairs to the third floor. Bunch of young adults had ~500 whippets around the room, they refused to let us in, I eventually got in and found they did something to the toilet, it kept running, they were to fucked up to notice the night before and it leaked through the bathroom floor, down an inside barrier wall and made the ceiling collapse in the gym. Wouldn't have been an issue had they just reported the leak when it happened.. instead it took us hours to get them to let us into the room, and they didnt spend the time cleanjng anything, just not wanting to get up. Whatever they did, they sure as shit weren't going to have fun explaining the damages they caused to their parents, because I don't think the hotel/police were letting them skip out on paying for it.

At almost $1 each, that isn't a terrible price. But anyone spending $5k on nitrous really should be buying it in bulk tanks, not packs of individual cartridges like this

It's also pretty dangerous since you're effectively depriving your brain of oxygen so honestly just smoke weed instead.

They're using them to get high.

They got 5,000 chargers, not really scammed, although you can get larger volumes for less. If you take a full lung-full from a balloon and hold it, it's like flipping a switch that shuts your brain off for a few seconds. As you come back, it feels like your brain is booting up as reality slowly reconstitutes. I never found it particularly pleasant and something about the nature of the experience made me feel it was unhealthy.

Wah wah wah wah