'HUFFING' STUDENTS STIR DRUG-PREVENTION GROUP

A national drug-prevention group has offered assistance to West Des
Moines police and school officials in the wake of suspensions handed
out to teenagers who allegedly inhaled compressed gas last week.

Alyssa Jones of the Alliance for Consumer Education in Washington,
D.C., said the group will provide free inhalant abuse prevention kits
for inclusion on the district's twice-yearly drug-education program.

Lynn Doescher, whose 14-year-old son, a student at Valley Southwoods
freshman school, was among four teens suspended, warned the public
about the practice this week. Called "huffing" or "dusting," it
delivers a concentration of gas, such as Freon, that replaces oxygen
in the lungs. It triggers a brief but intense high that mimics
drunkenness.

Police said no criminal charges could be filed since inhalants "in
and of themselves are not illegal."

School officials in 1986 banned students from bringing cans of dust
remover and other aerosol products to school after a 16-year-old
Valley High School student collapsed and died in a darkroom from the
intentional inhalation of a spray used to clean photographic negatives.