It was already around 2:30am – but the party was just getting started in the favela of Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro. Young ladies in short, tight dresses cavorted to the beats of funk – a distant, bass-heavy, tropical cousin of hip-hop – blaring from a huge sound system, while a pair of blonde-haired Norwegian tourists watched with astoundment as a line of gang members snaked their way through the crowd, waving their pistols and automatic rifles in the air.
It was the weekly street party, or baile funk, hosted by Red Command, Rio’s most powerful drug cartel.
On the side of the street, next to the pop-up bars serving cervezas and caipirinhas, stood a table with bags upon bags of stupefying substances laid out as if they were trinkets at a souvenir stall: weed (maconha), coke, crack, ecstasy, ketamine. A vial of cocaine branded with the gang’s logo cost 50 reais ($10). But it was a bundle of plastic spray tubes filled with a see-through fluid that caught my attention.
Asking my friend Fabrizio how to do it properly, I placed the back of the spray next to my mouth and gently pulled the trigger. In a matter of seconds, my head filled with a burst of light euphoria.
Having travelled half the globe, Brazil’s the only place where I’ve come across lança-perfume: a drug rooted in Brazil’s most famous tradition, Carnival, but also shaped by decades of prohibition.
Lança-perfume first hit the scene in the early 20th Century when it was imported into Brazil from Argentina as a scent diffuser, typically containing a combination of ether, chloroform and ethyl chloride, giving it a distinctly sweet smell. Before long, elite Brazilian recreational chemistry enthusiasts uncovered these bottles’ secret function.
Ether, lança’s key ingredient, is a transparent liquid produced by heating alcohol with sulfuric acid, that in small doses offers a similar sensation to laughing gas combined with massive drunkenness. It became popular in 19th century Ireland as an alternative to booze after the British imposed an outrageously steep alcohol tax.
On the mainland, Victorian high society held parties known as “ether frolics.” Since the effects are short (lasting roughly 15 minutes) but intense, ether can be moreish and addictive. Ether is also extremely flammable, a concern at a time when many buildings were wooden and lit by candlelight. Nowadays, most countries class ether as a poison and its sale is restricted.
Lança was initially manufactured by the French firm Rhodia, but when its factories were repurposed to make artillery rounds during the First World War, production moved to Brazil. By the 1920s, lança was a huge hit at Carnival, as well as with the middle and upper-classes, sold under brand names such as Pierrot and Colombina. This gave it an aura of glamour and respectability that we rarely see with other inhalants. Spraying lança at one another became a Carnival game, and Rhodia even awarded trophies at contests to whichever team consumed the most perfume.
“The risks are serious and go far beyond fleeting euphoria,” explained Bruno Logan Azevedo, a Brazilian psychologist who produces online social media harm reduction content and who has worked on harm reduction projects both among marginalised populations and within more festive contexts like techno raves and Carnival.
“Difficulty with motor coordination can lead to associated risks, [and] the vapours depress the central nervous system and can cause intoxication, dependence, and cardiovascular and neurological complications. Sudden death can result from cardiac arrhythmias, respiratory arrest due to central nervous system depression, especially when combined with other depressants such as alcohol.”
Over time, the bodily perils of repeatedly chloroforming yourself were becoming apparent, with reports of deaths, accidents and acute intoxication, the latter triggering a moral panic: in 1957, a congressman proposed banning the sweet perfume, blaming it for, “debauchery and the frequency of acts of complete immorality that were practiced in the streets of cities and especially in closed spaces.”
Four years later, President Jânio Quadros issued a decree forbidding all manufacture, sale and consumption of lança (incidentally, Quadros also banned bikinis as an affront to public morals). But no deadline was given, so factories continued cranking out the little intoxicating bottles for four more years.
After that, carnival-goers tried sidestepping the law by replacing perfume spray with “perfume jets” – plastic tubes containing perfume and alcohol – until another 1966 decree imposed a blanket ban on “the manufacture, sale and use of lança-perfume (a type of aerosol spray), as well as the use of aerosols in preparations intended to constitute instruments for carnival festivities, or otherwise.”
Nevertheless, the psychoactive perfume remained popular. Indeed, Brazil’s greatest pop icon Rita Lee dropped her greatest hit, Lança Perfume, in 1980. Since then, it’s been adopted by funk culture, being name-dropped by major MCs.
“Historically, there was an association between lança-perfume and harmless carnival pranks,” said Azevedo.
“Years later, with its prohibition and outside of those privileged spaces – carnival festivities in elite areas – the substance carries a strong stigma, associated with marginality and poverty… which greatly hinders contact, dialogue, and care.”
I saw a little of this for myself when I passed the perfume to a visitor from São Paulo, who looked at me as though I’d offered him a dead rat.
Today, lança is manufactured in clandestine facilities operated by Red Command and other drug gangs using ingredients obtained from paint shops, mechanics, and pharmacies. Just like vapes, the bottles will often pack a little flavour, such as banana, grape, or orange.
But since organised crime syndicates are not exactly renowned for their rigorous adherence to health-and-safety standards, the actual contents of a lança bottle may vary: an analysis of sixteen samples confiscated by the Rio de Janeiro police between 2014 and 2024 found a distinct lack of ether, but plenty of glue, cleaning products and other poisonous solvents.
“There is no fixed formula, and that is precisely one of the biggest risks,” warned Azevedo.
“The product sold illegally in Brazil today has a variable composition, frequently containing highly toxic industrial solvents; one of the famous and highly dangerous is welding anti-spatter solvent, for example. Clandestine manufacturers mix solvents such as thinner, benzene, ether, chloroform, ethyl alcohol, and even battery fluids or nail polish removers. In other words, those who use it don’t know exactly what they are inhaling — each batch may have a different recipe, which makes the risk of poisoning unpredictable.”
Azevedo believes more ought to be done to destigmatise lança enthusiasts, and instead better-educate them on managing the risks, including what to do if there’s an emergency, and to watch their intake of alcohol. Because, for now at least, Rita Lee’s favourite perfume is going nowhere.
