When Chemists Attack

My wife and I just returned from a holiday trip to Las Vegas. You can find just about anything in Vegas except fresh air.

Well, that’s not entirely true. You can buy fresh air from oxygen bars, found conveniently near or inside the casinos. Here’s one such bar found in the Circus Circus casino where we stayed.

For the price of a dollar a minute, you can breathe in oxygen bubbled through the flavor of your choice. While I remember hearing about oxygen bars about ten or so years ago, I’d never seen one in person until this trip.

You pay your money, and get a hose to breathe from (so it’s sanitary – do you really want to handle something that’s been up someone else’s nose?). Breathing pure oxygen can cause light-headedness, but the bar customers aren’t using masks. I doubt the customers of the oxygen bars are actually breathing in pure oxygen, since a lot of the air they breathe is plain old outside air with its measly 21 percent oxygen. As a way to separate people from money, these oxygen bars probably work well, but customers have a better chance of euphoria from the one-armed bandits!

I suppose the oxygen is harmless enough, but I wonder if the fragrances the oxygen is often bubbled through could trigger allergies / asthma…

Still, it can’t be any worse for you than breathing the air normally found inside the casinos!