ANTI-DRUG GROUPS WANT YOUTUBE TO YANK CLIPS THAT SHOW 'HUFFING'

Two drug abuse prevention groups are calling on the video-sharing
website YouTube to remove dozens of videos that show people getting
high by "huffing," inhaling chemicals such as air fresheners, computer
cleaning sprays and helium.

The National Inhalant Prevention Coalition (NIPC) sent e-mails to its
9,000 members just before Thanksgiving, asking them to complain to
YouTube about the videos. This month, the Community Anti-Drug
Coalitions of America (CADCA), an organization of more than 5,000
anti-drug groups, asked its members to do the same. NIPC also posted
public service ads on YouTube, warning that inhaling chemicals can
cause brain damage and death.

"These videos portray (inhaling chemicals) as a fun activity without
showing the consequences," says Harvey Weiss, executive director of
NIPC, a non-profit organization based in Chattanooga, Tenn. "This is a
potentially fatal activity."

The outcry over the videos reflects concerns about teenagers' abuse of
inhalants, which has increased in recent years, according to
Monitoring the Future, an annual drug use study by the University of
Michigan.

It also illustrates how the freewheeling exchange of information on
Internet websites, message boards and blogs raises difficult questions
concerning speech rights, censorship and websites' responsibilities in
monitoring content provided by viewers.

"We don't believe this is about censorship," CADCA Chairman and CEO
Arthur Dean says. "We believe that YouTube has some civic
responsibility. We are very concerned that some of these videos show
kids how to use inhalants."

YouTube allows people to post, watch and share original videos on its
website. The site, founded in February 2005, is one of the busiest on
the Internet. YouTube statistics indicate that 70 million videos are
viewed on the site each day. Membership to the site is free, and there
are few restrictions on content. Viewers can flag videos they find
offensive or inappropriate, so YouTube staff can review them.

YouTube officials declined to be interviewed or to say whether they
had received any requests from anti-drug groups to remove "huffing"
videos. In an e-mail from YouTube's public relations firm, YouTube
marketing manager Jenny Nielsen said the company does not allow
"videos showing dangerous or illegal acts, which is clearly stated in
the community guidelines on the site."

"Our community controls the content on the site, and they're the ones
(not us) who flag content they deem inappropriate and/or
questionable," Nielsen wrote. "Once a video is flagged, YouTube
reviews the material promptly and reserves the right to remove videos
from the system if they violate our terms of use."

Dozens of unflagged huffing videos were viewable on YouTube this
week.

In a video titled Can Air, a teenage girl identified as Addison
inhales a canned cleaning spray and says, "I am Satan." Another video
called Huffing Gas showed a young man inhaling helium from a green
balloon and laughing. He says to the camera, "How much do you love
helium? I love it. It's so great." Another, titled Gasoline, shows a
puppet inhaling fumes from a gas can and hallucinating.

Some huffing videos -- including one in which a young adult identified
as Dan appears to squirt air freshener up his nose -- have been
flagged but not removed. When a user clicks on the video to play it, a
message comes up: "This video may contain content that is
inappropriate for some users, as flagged by the YouTube user
community."