BE AWARE OF DANGER FROM INHALANTS

If you think "huffing" is something the Three Little Pigs had to watch out
for, the wolf may come knocking at your door. Huffing, bagging and sniffing
are terms for inhalant use, a cheap, legal and easy way that young people
in our community get high.

Parents often are out of the loop when it comes to inhalants. Children
discuss it and practice it: adults stay in the dark.

The week of March 17-23 is National Inhalants and Poisons Awareness Week,
designed to educate parents and young people about this deadly practice.
The goal? To take the "silent" out of this silent epidemic.

Most parents know how to talk to their kids about marijuana, date rape and
drinking because they have enough knowledge about these issues, but
inhalants are an information blind spot.

The numbers are startling. At least one in every five eighth-graders has
intentionally inhaled everyday products at the risk of brain damage and
even death, reports the 2001 National Institute on Drug Abuse "Monitoring
the Future Survey." More than 2 million young people used inhalants in 2000.

Inhalant abuse, most common in the 10 to 12 age bracket, is also considered
a "gateway drug", a student's first form of substance abuse before
"graduating" to other drugs. Inhalants are as close as the kitchen sink or
your child's classroom. Abusable products include: butane, propane,
gasoline, Freon, degreasers, typewriter correctional fluid, nitrous oxide,
whipped cream, shoe polish, spray paint, toluene, paint thinner,
chloroform, computer cleaning fluid, air freshener, cooking sprays,
"popper," "rush" and "locker room."

Young people in the 12 to 17 age group most commonly use glue or toluene,
followed by gasoline or lighter fluid. Young adults in the 18 to 25 age
bracket most commonly use nitrous oxide or "whippers."

What young people don't realize is that using any inhalant is like playing
Russian roulette: experimenters can die the first, 10th, or even 100th time
they use. Other effects of inhalant use include brain, respiratory, liver,
and kidney damage, short-term memory loss and hearing impairment.

We must educate our children about inhalants before they educate
themselves. We can protect our children by working together.

TRACY DASSOW

La Crosse