INHALANT ABUSE: THE SILENT EPIDEMIC

MEDIA, Pa. (AP) Five best friends gather to make a high school health video
about the dangers of smoking and drugs. Ten days later, the girls are
killed when their car plows into a utility pole. In the bloodstreams of
four, including the driver, are traces of a chemical named difluoroethane.

Inside the crumpled car, troopers find a can of "Duster II," a spray used
to clean computer keyboards. Its ingredients include difluoroethane.

The coroner's findings put the teens on a list of 240 people who have died
from "huffing" inhalants since 1996, according to the National Inhalant
Prevention Coalition.

The parents of the girls remain stunned. Last week, they released a
statement disputing the findings and suggesting their daughters might have
inhaled "the airborne agent" unintentionally.

But studies and doctors who treat teen-agers say their subjects tell them
that huffing, also called "sniffing" or "wanging," is the easiest high to
get and far easier to conceal than the rush from alcohol, marijuana or
tobacco.

It's cheap. It's intense. There are no dealers, no pipes, no needles, no
track marks. Some teens paint their fingernails with typewriter correction
fluid then sniff their fingers all day. Some soak their sleeves in solvent
and sniff away, with no one the wiser.

Wade Heiss' preferred means was sniffing air freshener in the back room of
his house in Bakersfield, Calif. Two days before Christmas 1995, his older
brother caught him in the act. Wade was startled. Moments later, he fell to
the floor. His heart had stopped.

Wade was dead at age 12.

"Yeah, I heard about this huffing," says Dr. Richard Heiss, Wade's father,
a family practitioner. "But even I didn't know the effects of it and I'm a
medical doctor. Nobody's telling parents about it. Why isn't someone
screaming and yelling about this?"

Studies rank huffing fourth among all forms of substance abuse by teens.
And what many teens and parents don't realize is that huffing can kill,
even the first time, says Harvey Weiss, founder of theNational Inhalant
Prevention Coalition in Austin, Texas.

More than 1,000 products containing "euphoriant" inhalants are widely
available, including vegetable cooking spray and deodorant, Weiss says, and
the number of easy-to-get chemicals to sniff is growing and changing with
time.

"I call it a silent epidemic," Weiss says. "Right now, there's barely any
public awareness out there. And in the young person's mind, how can they
think this is dangerous if they're not told? They think it's just household
stuff."

Most inhalants produce their effects by depressing the central nervous
system and slowing the heart, sometimes to an irregular beat. If a user
becomes anxious or frightened, the resultant adrenaline release can kick
the heart into even more inefficient rhythms, to the point that blood and
oxygen no longer reach the brain.

"In a few minutes, someone who seems to be doing fine can be dead," says
Earl Siegel, a Cincinnati pharmacist with expertise in inhalant abuse.
"People are unfamiliar with how dangerous and prevalent it is."

A federal study of users age 12 through adulthood estimated that new users
of inhalants in 1997 had increased to 805,000, from 380,000 in 1991. The
study, by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of
the Department of Health and Human Services, said most new users were aged
12-17.

According to Weiss, seventh- and eighth-graders are the most common users
among all teens.

The study called for a broad educational push to cut into those numbers.
Congress is considering a bill to designate the week of March 22 as
National Inhalants and Poisons Awareness Week. And SC Johnson, whose Glade
air freshener has been an object of inhalant abuse, in October joined with
Deloris Jordan, mother of basketball star Michael Jordan, in a campaign to
increase awareness. It distributes educational videos to schools,
hospitals, drug counselors and social workers.

Delaware County coroner Dimitri Contostavlos said he hoped to raise
awareness by releasing toxicology reports on the girls killed in the Jan.
29 car accident.

Loren Wells, Rebecca Weirich and Shaena Grigaitis, all 16; and Tracy Graham
and Rachael Lehr, both 17 juniors at a high school 10 miles outside of
Philadelphia were returning from shopping for prom dresses when their car
swerved out of control. The posted speed limit on the twisty, half-mile
stretch of road that locals call "Dead Man's Curve" because of numerous
accidents is 55 mph. Investigators say the teens' car, driven by Miss
Wells, was traveling at 66-88 mph when it hit the pole.

The can of "Duster II" was found in the car two days later.

"No one ever suspected these girls (of inhalant abuse)," Trooper Joseph
McCunney says.

"I think this might finally shake a few teen-agers' trees and make them
afraid about it. There's nothing more final than death," says Dr. Anthony
Acquavella, director of adolescent medicine at St. Christopher's Hospital
for Children in Philadelphia.

He recounts talking with teens who have sworn they didn't abuse inhalants
even as Wite-Out pens, for correcting typewritten errors, fell out of their
pockets.

"Why would anyone need Wite-Out these days?" he asks. "No one has
typewriters at home anymore."