Friday, March 16, 2001

By Ann McFeatters, Post-Gazette National Bureau

WASHINGTON -- One out of five American teen-agers tries "huffing" -- inhaling household products to get a cheap, easily available, temporary high -- and parents need to learn how to stop it, a coalition of industry and government agencies said yesterday in launching a $25 million education campaign.

The National Inhalant Prevention Coalition brought a tearful Diane Stem to Washington from Nashville, Tenn., to a news conference to tell how her 16-year-old son Ricky died. Ricky, a high school baseball star, was inhaling Freon from a home air conditioner when he collapsed and died in his room. It was the third time he had tried huffing.

"He was a good kid. This was just for fun, doing something he thought was harmless. He never meant to hurt us or himself," his mother said, who said she knew nothing about huffing at the time.

"We didn't have the luxury of seeing signs. But every month 441,000 teen-agers between the ages of 12 and 17 are [huffing]. This is much more than a passing fad."

Two Hopewell teen-agers died three years ago while inhaling methane fumes from an abandoned gas well, and police believe that a man inhaling paint thinner in January may have contributed to the deaths of four people in a Sharpsburg apartment building fire.

It is not known how many teen-agers die each year from inhalants, which can disrupt heart rhythms, but it is believed to be at least 100. Hundreds more suffer permanent brain, kidney, liver, blood or bone marrow damage from sniffing as many as 1,000 different everyday products -- everything from glues to aerosols to cleaning fluids to gasoline or other fuels. Inhaling some household substances can be addictive.

The ads on TV, radio, bus shelters and in newspapers will try to get across the message that sniffing inhalants is "very, very risky behavior," said Edward Jurith, acting director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Most parents, even those who talk with their children about drug abuse, never warn children about inhalants nor look for signs that their kids might be huffing, he said. The signs include:

Missing household products or empty containers.

Rags or bags that smell of chemicals.

Paint on a teen-agers face or fingers or chemical smells on their clothing.

Loss of balance, slurred speech, red eyes or nose, irritability, nausea, loss of appetite, sores around the mouth.

Ann Brown, chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, said the survey that found 20 percent of teens abusing household products also found that 95 percent of parents claim to know their children have not tried huffing.

A government brochure is available on the Internet at http://www.cpsc.gov/ or from (800) 638-CPSC (2772). Information is also provided at http://www.theantidrug.com/, maintained by the Office of Drug Control Policy, and the coalition site at http://www.inhalants.org/.

Source:  http://www.post-gazette.com/healthscience/20010316inhale2.asp