TEENS FALL PREY TO INHALANTS

WASHINGTON -- The war on drugs has a new target.

While cops and parents worry about marijuana, crack and heroin,
growing numbers of young kids are doing serious damage to their bodies
and even dying from using inhalants, many of which are commonly found
around the house and at school. ``As we look at the nation's drug
problem, probably this is the single biggest cause of unnecessary
destruction in our society,'' Gen. Barry McCaffrey, director of the
Office of National Drug Control Policy, said Tuesday. Inhalants are
everyday items that contain toxic gas or liquid, such as aerosol air
fresheners kept under the kitchen sink; butane cigarette lighters left
on the coffee table; and Freon stolen from a neighbor's air
conditioning unit. Some teen-agers have even poured gasoline into a
plastic bag and put their head inside. Young people inhale these
substances to feel intoxicated. But the effects of ``huffing'' or
``sniffing'' can be lasting and extremely severe.

Abuse often results in death, even for first-time users.

Teen-agers sometimes suffer permanent brain, bone marrow, liver and
kidney damage, and a loss of their faculties, McCaffrey said. Inhalant
use has been a problem for decades but declined after inhalants were
targeted by drug fighters in the late 1980s. But now they are roaring
back and the users are younger than ever. In 1996, there were about
805,000 new inhalant users, up from 382,000 in 1991, according to a
National Household Survey on Drugs last year. One in five teen-agers
has used inhalants to get high, according to the National Institute on
Drug Abuse. That number is almost identical to the percentage of
eighth-graders who have smoked marijuana. Perhaps even more shocking
than the number of young people experimenting with lethal inhalants is
the percentage of parents who believe their sons and daughters would
never deliberately use inhalants.

More than 90 percent of parents asked in the 1997 survey refused to
believe their children had ever abused inhalants. Rick Heiss, a doctor
from Bakersfield, Calif., defined the problem at a news conference
here Tuesday. Heiss caught his teen-age son Wade inhaling gas in a
shed behind their house in late 1995. When confronted, the boy was
embarrassed and apologetic. He said he was sorry; agreed that what
he'd done was foolish and promised never to do it again. Two weeks
later, just before Christmas, Wade was found dead on his pool deck
after inhaling poisonous fumes.

His family watched, devastated, while his
father tried in vain to breath life back into him.

``It's never too early and seldom too late to talk to them about it,'' Heiss
said Tuesday. ``This is an epidemic of ignorance we are facing in our
nation.''

``This is a battle and a problem best fought before it starts,'' Heiss said.
``Talk to your children while they still listen; while you are still their
primary influence; before they turn to their peers for acceptance.''
Heiss said he couldn't stand by while other teen-agers are left to make a

fatal mistake.

A videotape, ``Educate: Creating Inhalant Abuse Awareness Together,'' has
been produced to help guide parents.

For more information about inhalants or to get a copy of the video, contact
the National Inhalant Prevention Coalition at (800) 269-4237 or go to its
Web site: http://www.inhalants.org.

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady