PARENTS, DRUG POLICY CHIEF SOUND ALARM ABOUT 'HUFFING' INHALANTS

When 16-year-old David Manlove left his home in June 2001, he told his
mother he was going to swim at a friend's house. He didn't tell her
what else they planned to do.

He and a friend purchased a can of computer duster and "huffed" it
while they swam. David inhaled the fumes and dove under water to
intensify the high. He didn't surface. By the time his mother Marissa
arrived at the pool, he was in cardiac arrest.

"My beautiful boy stretched out on a gurney, paramedics frantically
conducting CPR," she said Thursday, recalling the scene."The first
thing I noticed is that David's feet were blue." Her son was dead.

It was "the worst kind of loss that parents can endure" said Marissa's
husband, Kim, choking back tears.

The Manloves joined the nation's drug policy chief, John Walters, on
Thursday to help highlight the problem of inhalant abuse, or "huffing"
- -- when kids or adults intentionally inhale common household products
such as glue, paint, shoe polish, and gasoline to get a high.

Inhalants provide an instant rush for users but they have harmful side
effects -- nausea, seizures, heart palpitations and vomiting. Over
time, they can lead to brain damage and death.

Charles Curie, administrator at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration, said inhalant abuse is a great concern
because the products used are legal and therefore easy for children to
get their hands on.

"It's a silent epidemic in many ways, overshadowed and ignored perhaps
because it's not considered a quote illegal drug," he said.

The National Inhalant Prevention Coalition said it knows of about 125
inhalant deaths each year. The estimate is based mostly on the number
of calls the group gets from parents or other family members.

Harvey Weiss, executive director of the Texas-based advocacy group,
said many more deaths likely are undiagnosed and unreported.

Weiss unveiled new guidelines for medical examiners, coroners and
others to help better detect and document inhalant deaths. He said the
framework would hopefully aid in getting a more accurate picture on
the scope of the problem.

The guidelines encourage thorough crime scene searches to determine
whether aerosol containers and inhalant paraphernalia, such as plastic
bags, were present.

Teens fill the bags with hair spray or other aerosol products and
then breathe in the fumes.