ABUSE OF INHALANTS A GROWING PROBLEM

Most parents are astute enough to figure out their teenager is getting
high on drugs if they happen to find, say, a bag of pot or a sheaf of
rolling papers in the kid's bedroom.

However, these same parents are probably none the wiser if they happen
to find some seemingly innocuous product like, say, a can of fabric
protector or spray paint or spray lubricant.

But these parents should be worried, because these ordinary household
products and others like them are used as chemical inhalants by an
alarming number of youngsters for the purpose of getting high.

In a survey last year by the University of Michigan, which measured
illicit drug use by eighth-, 10th-, and 12th-grade students, 20.5
percent of eighth-graders admitted to trying an inhalant, compared to
22 percent who admitted to trying marijuana.

Interestingly, a 1997 survey by the Consumer Product Safety Commission
found that, while 91 percent of parents talked to their kids about
substance abuse, fewer than half said they ever talked about inhalants.

Moreover, 95 percent of parents said they believed their youngsters
had never used inhalants.

Obviously, there are a lot of parents out there who either are
uninformed about the prevalence of inhalant use by kids or are
refusing to accept that maybe their kids are getting high off
vegetable cooking spray or nail polish remover (with acetone or
toluene) or VCR head cleaner.

Chemical inhalants are just as dangerous to health as marijuana. And
parents need to be even more wary about their kids abusing inhalants
than other mind-altering substances, simply because inhalants are so
much easier for kids to obtain and at much less expense.