Background: A Cloud 9 Smoke & Vape shop in Georgia (WSB). Inset: Joseph Tillman (Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office).
A Georgia-based smoke shop chain was slapped with a wrongful-death lawsuit months after it allegedly sold a can of nitrous oxide to a man accused of killing a cyclist while high.
Back in March, Charles “Chuck” Johnson, 78, died after being struck by a car driven by Joseph Tillman, 24, who was doing whippets of Galaxy Gas while behind the wheel, police said. Months after losing her husband, Johnson’s widow Regina Johnson is suing the manufacturers of Galaxy Gas and the chain of smoke shops that sold him the product, claiming that they knew the product would be used as a recreational drug.
According to the lawsuit obtained by Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB, Tillman bought the can of Galaxy Gas that he used to get high at the time of the accident at a Cloud 9 Smoke and Vape shop less than an hour before the accident happened. Johnson’s attorney Alan Hamilton told WSB that Tillman “was riding down the road, driving while huffing nitrous oxide straight out of the Galaxy Gas can.” Tillman eventually passed out behind the wheel and collided with Charles Johnson, who was riding an e-bike on the sidewalk.
Johnson was wearing a helmet at the time, however, he died from his injuries on March 10, a week after the accident.
Kyle Wallace, another attorney representing Johnson, told WSB that it was a felony for the shop to knowingly possess and sell nitrous oxide except for culinary purposes. While cans of Galaxy Gas do include a disclaimer warning that the only acceptable use is for culinary purposes, the lawsuit stated that this was merely a legal cover. Hamilton told WSB that the Cloud 9 chain “had to absolutely know they were distributing a substance that was going to be inhaled by kids and other people.”
Wallace went even further, saying, “The intent is clear that it’s not being sold for culinary purposes.”
WSB also noted in their reporting that all three parties being sued — Cloud 9 Smoke Co. 28, LLC, Galaxy Gas, LLC, and SBK International, LLC — all had the same principal address as recently as 2022.
In a statement provided to WSB, the attorney representing the companies, Chris Timmons, said, “Neither Cloud 9 Smoke Co. nor SBK International, LLC, have ever marketed or sold nitrous oxide products for unlawful use or misuse, which was strictly prohibited under their terms of use and conditions of sale at the time Galaxy Gas products were sold. Both Cloud 9 and SBK International took immediate action out of an abundance of caution to remove Galaxy Gas products from retail shelves and distribution following viral social media videos of individuals misusing various nitrous oxide products.”
Wallace stated that the family who owns the parent company SBK International and the Cloud 9 chain began manufacturing and selling Galaxy Gas “specifically because of the demand for nitrous oxide for illicit recreational use among its customer base at its Cloud 9 head shops.”
Timmons, according to WSB, also said in his statement that the companies cannot be held responsible for what individuals do with the product outside of its intended use.
Tillman was charged with two counts of first-degree vehicular homicide, homicide by vehicle — leaving the scene, driving under the influence, felony hit-and-run, reckless driving, and false statements. He is out on bond and scheduled to be arraigned on Jan. 8, 2025.
