Sniffing Trumps Weed for 12-Year-Olds
More 12-year-olds in the U.S. get high by sniffing inhalants than by using marijuana, cocaine or hallucinogens combined, a new government report finds.
A survey released by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration finds that lifetime use of potentially deadly inhalants among 12-year-olds was 6.9 percent in 2008, compared with 5.1 percent for illegal prescription drugs, 1.4 percent for marijuana, 0.7 percent for hallucinogens and 0.1 percent for cocaine.
"We continue to face the challenge of increasing experimentation and intentional misuse of common household products among the youngest and most vulnerable segments of our population - 12 year olds," Harvey Weiss, executive director for the National Inhalant Prevention Coalition, said in a statement. "The data are ominous and their implications are frightening because of the toxic, chemical effects of these legal products on growing minds and bodies."
Products that young Americans sniff include aerosol cans, glue, paint solvents and lighter fluid, among others. Experts warn that these inhalants can cause cardiac arrest, known as "sudden sniffing death."
The data, found in the National Surveys on Drug Use and Health, was released in conjunction with the 18th annual National Inhalants and Poisons Awareness Week.
Sniffing has been a fairly steady trend among 12-year-olds in recent years, according to Joseph Gfroerer, director of SAMHSA's division of population surveys. The lifetime rate has fluctuated between 7.7 percent and 6.1 percent since 2002.
More broadly, 1.1 percent of children ages 12 to 17 engaged in sniffing in 2008, compared with 6.7 percent who smoked marijuana.
According to Dr. Timothy Condon, deputy director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the data on inhalants abuse presents a number of potential troublesome trends.
"There's a disturbing downward trend among high schoolers who see 'great risk' in using inhalants once or twice a week," Condon said in a statement. "At the same time, the survey shows that inhalant use isn't declining as much as it has in recent years among eighth and tenth graders. If today's attitude translates into future use, we have reason to be concerned."
Also present at the news conference kicking off the awareness week was Ashley Upchurch, a 17-year-old recovering from an inhalants addiction, who warned of the dangers of sniffing.
"Inhalants were a cheap, legal, and an intense high that would also enhance the feeling I would get from other drugs," she said. "These highs nearly destroyed my life."
Copyright 2010 CBS. All rights reserved. A survey released by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration finds that lifetime use of potentially deadly inhalants among 12-year-olds was 6.9 percent in 2008, compared with 5.1 percent for illegal prescription drugs, 1.4 percent for marijuana, 0.7 percent for hallucinogens and 0.1 percent for cocaine.
"We continue to face the challenge of increasing experimentation and intentional misuse of common household products among the youngest and most vulnerable segments of our population - 12 year olds," Harvey Weiss, executive director for the National Inhalant Prevention Coalition, said in a statement. "The data are ominous and their implications are frightening because of the toxic, chemical effects of these legal products on growing minds and bodies."
Products that young Americans sniff include aerosol cans, glue, paint solvents and lighter fluid, among others. Experts warn that these inhalants can cause cardiac arrest, known as "sudden sniffing death."
The data, found in the National Surveys on Drug Use and Health, was released in conjunction with the 18th annual National Inhalants and Poisons Awareness Week.
Sniffing has been a fairly steady trend among 12-year-olds in recent years, according to Joseph Gfroerer, director of SAMHSA's division of population surveys. The lifetime rate has fluctuated between 7.7 percent and 6.1 percent since 2002.
More broadly, 1.1 percent of children ages 12 to 17 engaged in sniffing in 2008, compared with 6.7 percent who smoked marijuana.
According to Dr. Timothy Condon, deputy director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the data on inhalants abuse presents a number of potential troublesome trends.
"There's a disturbing downward trend among high schoolers who see 'great risk' in using inhalants once or twice a week," Condon said in a statement. "At the same time, the survey shows that inhalant use isn't declining as much as it has in recent years among eighth and tenth graders. If today's attitude translates into future use, we have reason to be concerned."
Also present at the news conference kicking off the awareness week was Ashley Upchurch, a 17-year-old recovering from an inhalants addiction, who warned of the dangers of sniffing.
"Inhalants were a cheap, legal, and an intense high that would also enhance the feeling I would get from other drugs," she said. "These highs nearly destroyed my life."
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It's funny how the Netherlands, where pot is effectively legal, has a much lower rate of cannabis users than the US, an even lower rate of hard drug users, and an unusually low rate of teen drug use. Not to mention, the US states that have legalized the medical use of marijuana have seen as much as a 50% drop in the rate of teen use. It's obviously counter-intuitive, so I wonder why those who want to "protect the children" keep pushing pushing for laws that make the drug problem worse.
It's time to allow ordinary Americans to grow a little marijuana in their own back yards (maybe a $100 permit for a dozen plants).
It would rip the guts out of the drug cartels' pocketbook and free up our tax dollars for education, repairing our bridges, fighting terrorism, and a hundred other worthy goals.
Does anybody really think that locking up marijuana users, or even people who grow a few plants for themselves... Does anybody _really_ think locking those people up is a good use of our tax dollars?
I propose a very expensive and ineffectual "War On Glue". We will need a new mammoth bureaucracy to protect our citizens from glue. But don't worry; I am a small government "family values" conservative, so the money that would be spent on this war will be paid for with "tax cuts".
I believe that the hospital mentioned in this article was the first in the US dedicated to inhalation treatment.
Check out this site if you will...sorry, I can't seem to get this to post so that you can go directly there.
I personally lost a prospective student who'd just turned 10 to huffing. I did get to work with a younger and older brother of his who'd also been into huffing.
At one time, this had been very popular with the leaders of the community,those who are "elders" now- those who have survived. They now encourage the young people not to huff, but words don't mean much after their behavior set an example early on in the lives of the youth.
People are lost and they are afraid about something, often it's caused by a lot of factors. Anyway they search a means to forget their problem.
Don't forget that people get high sometimes by stupidity, because of bad friends, but also, and that is the main reason that they have lost the control in the real life and take according them the control in the clound by floating in the air.
According to some people, that is a good reason to legalized Marijuna. False Answer, you know like me that some people have never enough, after that, that will be a good reason tomorrow to legalized anything else.
People are lost and they are afraid about something, often it's caused by a lot of factors. Anyway they search a means to forget their problem.
Don't forget that people get high sometimes by stupidity, because of bad friends, but also, and that is the main reason that they have lost the control in the real life and take according them the control in the clound by floating in the air.
According to some people, that is a good reason to legalized Marijuna. False Answer, you know like me that some people have never enough, after that, that will be a good reason tomorrow to legalized anything else.
Of course, this varies person to person, but it often takes only months of huffing gasoline to create a person with signs of brain cell loss and other disabilities-lack of ability to finish sentences, much less carry on a conversation at all.
Huffing and methamphetamine usage is a frighteningly pervasive epidemic.