More kids abusing inhalants

WASHINGTON – Diane Stem of Old Hickory, Tenn., vividly remembers the day she was called home by her distraught husband and daughter: Her 16-year-old son, Ricky Joe Stem Jr., had been found dead in the house with a plastic bag over his head. He had been sniffing Freon from the house’s air-conditioning system.

Marissa Manlove of Indianapolis got a call from a friend in June 2001 who told her that her 16-year-old son, David Jefferis Manlove, had dived into a swimming pool and not come up. The teenager died after breathing from a can of computer duster, using the nozzle as a straw to suck the chemical toluene inside.

A hidden epidemic is gaining momentum in America, experts say. Children as young as fourth-graders are deliberately inhaling the fumes of dangerous chemicals from a variety of household and office products. Inhalants, as they are known, are widely available and hard to detect, and are fueling a dangerous trend. The most reliable annual survey of drug use among children has found that inhalants are the one group of drugs in which abuse is on the rise.

The chemicals travel rapidly to the brain to produce highs similar to alcohol intoxication. Unlike the effect of alcohol, these highs disappear within minutes, making it hard for parents to detect the abuse.

The products, which can range from gasoline to cigarette lighter fluid, cleaning supplies to adhesives, are often highly toxic and addictive.

New brain imaging research has shown that the chemicals can produce lasting changes in the brain, as well as heart, kidney and liver damage.

The new brain imaging research also shows that different inhalants affect different parts of the brain.