March 29, 2001--
They're common household products, and they're killing our kids.
One parent says, "I wish I had known how widespread this inhalant abuse is. I wish I had talked to him about using inhalants."
A former huffer has a sobering message to his teenage peers as they watch the NBC TV show ER on Channel 5 Thursday night.
Science Specialist Ed Yeates says the episode hits all too close to home for this Utah teen, who began inhaling or "huffing" inhalants when he was 12 years old.
Almost half a million teenagers huff or sniff inhalants in any month. Within one year - among that group - 991,000 new users became permanent abusers.
A 14-year-old Utah teen became one of those staggering casulaties.
ER Thursday night dramatizes the potentially lethal effects of huffing inhalants, a story which begins with suspicious odors on a school bus.
But inside Valley Mental Health's adolescent residential treatment center the drama is real for a 14-year-old teenager. Tony's full identity is hidden, but his story is not.
"The first time I got into huffing, I was twelve years old. My friend down in Provo introduced me to the aerosol-- the Glade aerosol," Tony says.
Tony and his friends chose Glade Air Freshner. But other common inhalants used to "get high" include:
- paint thinner
- nail polish remover
- gasoline
- correction fluids
- bleach
- rubber cement
- laughing gas (nitrous oxide)
- whipping cream aerosols
"Probably five minutes or so after I did it, I just felt this high that like, 'Whoa, this is far better than anything I've ever done,'" Tony says.
"When I first did it, it was just one can and I was gone. But after a while we would do it constantly, every day. I mean, we couldn't stop doing it," he says.
Tony admits he was up to four cans a day, and his group was "huffing" almost anywhere--at home, at school, even in public, hiding the aerosol in the sleeves of jackets. The kids put a rag over it, walking and huffing at the same time.
But then came the side effects. Headaches, nausea, blurred vision, white spots on the face, sore throat, nose bleeds and seizures.
The most devastating - a permanent loss of short term memory.
"I couldn't remember things that I said one second ago," Tony says. "But I really didn't let that both my huffing. I just made jokes about it. If I couldn't remember something, I would just call myself dumb-- you know Tony, you are acting stupid. You don't know what you said a moment ago."
Tony has been off inhalants for nine months now, and will graduate next month from Valley Mental Health's ARTEC rehab program.
The message to his peers: Don't start - don't do it. The damage to the brain, nerve cells, heart and lungs are not worth the short-term buzz.
