Although parents' concerns around drug abuse tend to focus on illicit drugs such as ecstasy and heroin, some of the most widely abused yet overlooked substances are occupying shelf space in kitchen cupboards, bathrooms, and garages across the country. A wide range of common household products that contain solvents or aerosols such as spray paints, cleaning fluids, gasoline, hair spray, and canned whipped cream are commonly used by grade school students to get high, to the extent that inhalants are the most commonly abused class of chemicals among high school students with the exception of marijuana.(1) The National Inhalant Prevention Coaltion reports that one in five eighth graders have used inhalants.(2)

Inhalants vaporize at room temperature and are rapidly absorbed through the lungs. "Inhalant use" refers to the intentional breathing of these substances to achieve an altered state.

Inhalants are readily available, inexpensive, and legal everyday products yet are extremely dangerous. They are consumed via "snorting" directly from the container, "huffing" via a saturated rag, or "bagging" from a paper or plastic bag. The potential for abuse is enormous, yet treatment facilities for inhalant users are difficult to find.

The effects of inhalants include euphoria, delirium and hallucinations. Long-term adverse effects include loss of coordination and depression, brain damage, short term memory loss, hearing loss, limb spasms, bone marrow damage, as well as liver and kidney damage. Users also risk "sudden sniffing death syndrome", which can occur when the heart beats erratically.

According to health officials inhalants do not show up on drug screening tests, which makes inhalant abuse difficult to detect. Several states have laws against inhaling compounds, teaching minors to use inhalants, or selling inhalants to minors, but these laws are rarely enforced because law enforcement tends to focus its resources on illicit drugs.

NOTES:

1. "Inhalant Abuse." Drug Testing Quarterly. Flagstaff, AZ: Fall 2001.
   
2. The National Inhalant Prevention Coalition. See also: State Inhalant Laws