'HUFFING' VICTIM'S MOM TRIES TO SAVE OTHERS

Renee Sherer plans to visit schools to spread the message that
inhaling aerosol fumes can kill.

After losing her 12-year-old son to huffing, Renee Sherer is on a
crusade to prevent other children from making the same fatal mistake.

Tyler Pinnick died last week after inhaling fumes from a Lysol aerosol
can to get high, an attempt Sherer believes was his first.

"He was a sports jock, a computer person, not a druggie," she
said.

Now Tyler is Sherer's angel with a message: Huffing
kills.

Sherer said she plans to spread that message wherever she goes. As
part of her campaign, she plans to visit schools to show children a
video about the effects of huffing.

"I'll go wherever they'll take me, and I'll start in Huntington Beach
with Ocean View School District," she said. A death like this has
never occurred before in this city, said Lt. Chuck Thomas of the
Huntington Beach Police Department.

And Tyler's family wants to make sure one doesn't occur again. Dennis
Pinnick, Tyler's father has plans to raise money to open a ranch for
troubled youth. Sherer's sister is making T-shirts for the Promoting
Resources in Drug Education Foundation, more commonly known as the
PRIDE Foundation, to pass out to students. The group supports DARE.

"We're just now starting," Sherer said.And students are already
listening.

"A lot of students truly absorbed the program based on the recent
death," DARE Officer Dave Humphreys said. Among the hundreds of
letters Sherer received from Tyler's friends and schoolmates, there is
a letter written by a seventh-grade girl who admitted that she and her
friends had been huffing.

Several children approached Sherer at Tyler's memorial service last
week to admit that they had experimented with huffing at school in the
bathrooms, Sherer said.

"These girls said they'd carry the cans of whipping cream in their
purses," she said.

School officials said they are not aware of any major drug problem.
However, Humphreys said huffing is becoming a trend.

"Everybody doesn't like this huffing stuff. It kills," said Remington
Cox, 9, a friend from Tyler's church. "It's not good. I don't want to
do it because it's going to kill me. I want to be an architect."

Schools are working to raise awareness about its dangers.

Parents, like Marine View School Principal Liz Williams, are now
asking their children if they are involved with drugs, specifically
huffing. Middle school teachers at Ocean View School District have
brought newspaper articles about Tyler to their classes to discuss
what huffing is and what it can do to the body.

"We're teaching them when to break the code of silence," Williams
said.

Vista View Middle School is collecting money to donate to the PRIDE
Foundation. The school has already raised $400. Principal Kathy Bihr
is also planning a student assembly and a parent education night that
will specifically address inhalant use.

"It's an educational moment, and we need to take advantage while it's
still fresh," Bihr said.

Fountain Valley School District is following suit. Drug education is
already included in the year-round curriculum in the health classes,
but officials want to do more. They sent information about inhalants
to all their school principals to include in the newsletters that are
sent home to parents, said Catherine Follett, assistant superintendent
of instruction.

"I'm very distraught and dismayed that this young man died," said
Albert Russo, a parent at Vista View. "It was an indication that it
does happen. I hope it can serve as a way to make the danger of such
actions obvious to other kids so that he would not have died in vain."

Some parents are surprised that children at the middle school level
are experimenting with drugs. However, Humphreys said it's not
uncommon for fifth-graders to start using drugs --usually alcohol,
marijuana, tobacco and inhalants.Drug use usually occurs in troubled
youth, but sometimes children try drugs out of curiosity, he said.
Parents should take note of bags, rags and unusual odors in the
bedroom or garage as signs of inhalant use.