TALE OF ABUSE: WAITING TO INHALE

Denver area No. 1 in paint, glue sniffing, but ranks low overall

Metro Denver is the glue-sniffing, paint-inhaling capital of the nation,
but overall, it ranks second-lowest in drug abuse among 21 metro areas, a
federal survey indicates.

While metro Denver has shown a decrease in overall drug cases at emergency
rooms the past several years, it ranks first among the 21 metro areas in
inhalant abuse.

The survey by the Drug Abuse Warning Network, an agency of Health and Human
Services, looked at drug-abuse cases in emergency rooms at selected
hospitals, then extrapolated overall numbers.

Metro Denver was the only city with more than 50 inhalant-abuse cases at
emergency rooms in 2002. Denver had 76, more than it had the previous two
years combined.

The overall numbers are better news for metro Denver.

Only San Diego had a lower rate of drug-abuse mentions in emergency room
cases than did Denver. San Diego's rate was 24 per 100,000 population,
while Denver's was 28 and the national average was 40.

And Denver was one of just four metro areas that showed a double-digit
decline - 14.9 percent - in drug-abuse mentions between 2000 and 2002.
Nationally, use climbed 3 percent.

Denver's use has declined 9 percent since 1995, while the nation's rate
climbed 5 percent.

In Denver, LSD showed the biggest drop in use, 92 percent, in the past two
years; date-rape drug GHB declined 65 percent.

The emergency rooms at Denver Health, PorterCare, Littleton and Swedish
hospitals haven't seen the huge bump in inhalant abuse the survey
indicated, but that doesn't mean the doctors there are complacent.

Inhalants, which can range from glue to spray paint to cleaners, often are
abused by the homeless and others in poverty who "aren't taking care of
themselves," said Dr. Kenon Heard, toxicologist with both University
Hospital and the Rocky Mountain Poison Center.

"These products contain other substances besides what they're inhaling to
get high," said Heard. "Things like methanol, wood alcohol" can be very
dangerous.

Inhalants can cause euphoria, but they also can kill you or leave you
disabled, said Dr. Stephen Cantrill, director of emergency medicine at
Denver Health Medical Center.

Inhalants can cause permanent kidney damage and, used in the long term, can
kill a lot of brain cells, Cantrill said. "Every time you use them, you get
a little dumber."

Metro Denver showed an 85 percent increase in heroin abuse from 1995 to
2002, the DAWN report said.

Denver Health has no heroin abusers as inpatients, Cantrill said, but "We
know clearly when a new shipment of heroin is in. (Users) don't know how
powerful the new stuff is, so we have a lot of overdoses until they've
figured it out."

In Denver and across the nation, there was a huge increase in the abuse of
topical agents. Dr. Judy Ball, project director for DAWN, said much of that
increase is likely from abuse of dithenhydramine, found in Benadryl and
other antihistamines used by allergy sufferers. It is occasionally abused
for its stimulant or hallucinogenic effects.

Heard said methamphetamine remains, after alcohol, "the biggest drug abuse
problem in Denver." Alcohol is still far and away the major drug of abuse
in metro Denver and across the nation.