PROGRAM WILL GIVE PARENTS, PROFESSIONALS TOOLS TO FIGHT USE OF INHALANTS

They're in your house and child's school. And the last time you went
shopping, it's likely you bought one.

They are legal, but inhalants are also killers.

That's why Harvey Weiss, executive director for the National Inhalant
Prevention Coalition, will be canvassing Hardin County on Thursday speaking
to professional treatment and prevention providers, parents, school staffs
and youth services professionals about the dangers of ingesting fumes and
chemicals.

"It's like playing Russian roulette, because just one use can prove fatal,"
Weiss said. "We speak to 100 to 125 parents a year who tell us their
children have died" from inhalant abuse.

One in five students in America has used an inhalant to get high by the
time he or she reaches the eighth grade, according to the NIPC Web site.
Abuse can result in death, brain damage, loss of muscle control and
destruction of the heart, kidney, liver, blood and bone marrow.

With that in mind, the Kentucky Army National Guard, which is co-sponsoring
the seminars, approached Weiss to make the appearances.

"I sense that there's a great need for education about inhalants around the
state," Weiss said. "It is the first substance a young person will try, and
that includes alcohol and tobacco."

The adult-only seminars, titled "Inhalants: The Silent Epidemic," will also
be sponsored by Elizabethtown's Communicare Regional Prevention Center.

"We are seeing nationally, and at the state and local levels, a trend that
inhalant use is on the increase, so we want to do what we can to get the
word out," said Kelly Harl, prevention director at Communicare. "We're also
seeing kids start to use at a younger age."

The focus of the seminars, Harl said, is to raise awareness in the
community and to reach a broad range of the area's adults who have daily
interaction with kids.

"We want to educate people about the signs and symptoms associated with the
abuse," she said. "By educating them, we hope to reduce the chances of our
young people ever getting started."