Adolescents have died huffing from cans of Dust-Off brand compressed air.

Myrna: Dust Off is a can of compressed air used to blow dust off a computer. Enhaling Dust Off is being done mostly by kids ages 9 through 15. Kids even have a name for it. It's called dusting which is a take off from the Dust Off name. It gives them a slight high for about 10 seconds. It makes them dizzy. It also contains a propellant that is a heavy gas. Heavier than air. When inhaled, it fills the lungs and keeps the good air, with oxygen, out. That's why users feel dizzy, buzzed. It decreases the oxygen to the brain, to the heart. IT KILLS. The horrible part about this is there is no warning. There is no level that kills. It's not cumulative or an overdose; it can just go randomly, terribly wrong. ITS NOT AN OVERDOSE. It's Russian roulette. The users usually dies breathing it in. If not, the user dies within two seconds of finishing "the hit." The experts call this huffing. Kids don't believe it's huffing because it doesn't fit and it doesn't follow the huffing signals. There is no chemical reaction, no strong odor. A great number of teens and pre-teens routinely attempt to get high by abusing inhalants and solvents found in common household products. Dust-Off is just one of a thousand or more products that can abruptly end the life of someone foolishly looking for an inhalant high. The list of items that can be turned to this purpose is almost endless and includes such innocuous-looking goods as hair spray and aerosol whipped cream. Depending on how the intoxicant is taken in, the process is referred to as 'bagging' or 'huffing' - bagging requires the substance be contained in a plastic or paper bag which the thrill-seeker then breathes from, while huffing involves either breathing directly from an aerosol or through a cloth soaked in solvent.


Shawn: I can no longer remember the name, but I remember there was a boy a couple of years older than me who lived a couple of blocks east of us that died from bagging. I think I was in junior high when it happened. He had a brother that was closer to my age. I remember that I knew them, but I don't know why I cannot remember their name any longer.


In Chile when I was in one of the poorest areas I had served, we used to see boys and teenagers who had (in my view) completely "burned out" their brain from sniffing shoe glue from inside little plastic bags or beer cans. Some of them were only nine-to-ten years old. The older ones were usually still in their mid-teens. Many appeared sleepy and despondant--mostly the ones that had been doing it the longest. It was hard for some of them to carry on a conversation. They would sniff for hours a day. When I first learned about it I was astonished. I had a brave companion that would take the bags away from them. It was one of the saddest things I remembered seeing there.

I said it appeared to me that they had burned out their brains. Besides periodic death from either immediate suffocation or a triggered heart-failure, permanent nerve damage can result from long-term sniffing. Consider this quote from an article: "On a sidewalk in San Pedro Sula, Honduras ... a lanky, dark-haired boy [is] sitting with arms curled around his folded legs, staring at the passing traffic. The boy, a nineteen year-old named Marvin, has been sniffing glue for ten years. Once the leader of a gang of street kids, he now has slurred speech and vacant eyes. A year ago, Marvin began to lose feeling in his legs. Now he can no longer walk. He slides on his butt, spiderlike, through gutters, across streets, and along the sidewalks. Still loyal to their chief, the younger kids in his gang bring Marvin food, carry him to a news stand to spend the night, and make sure he has enough glue to stay high. ... Doctors offer no hope that Marvin will ever walk again. ...the solvent in the glue he sniffs, is a neurotoxin known to cause irreparable nerve damage." Irreparable nerve damage--I have seen boys like this, I have seen their vacant eyes. I did not see a boy that could no longer walk, but I saw boys who had no hope, whose eyes were vacant, and who could barely function or carry on a conversation. It begins somewhat innocently, but goes so wrong. Again, it was one of the saddest things I saw there. Don't take me wrong, I love the Chilean people and culture. I might see more of the world's troubles here, if I were out walking the streets and poor areas as much as I did there. It's just that when you are nine-to-ten, you are barely learning about consequences, and to tell right from wrong. It is sad that something that appears (or is made to appear) so innocent, no matter where you live, can go so wrong. The American Association of Family Physicians reports that nearly 20% of children in middle school and high school have experimented with enhaled substances. Teens know about it, there are web sites addressing it, there are rock-groups named for it. 


I can't help but wonder now that if a certain boy who lived "around the corner" had any friends or better friends, if somehow his death could have been prevented.


Melanie: He was a Leafty. He had a brother my age as well. It was very sad. Larry, the brother my age, was picked on after that. The family moved a little while later.
Mel


Shawn: Thank you Melanie. Now I remember the last name. I did not remember that they moved because of teasing. As if the tragedy was not bad enough on its own. It kind of reminds me that I once heard that if a chicken gets a wound, all of the chickens will peck at it. I never raised chickens (the couple I ever tried to raise were killed by the cat while still chicks), so I have not witnessed this. But it seems, that unless we are inspired by better motives, we just seem to act like chickens--spreading our wings out to make us look bigger than we are, puffing-out our chests about how good we are, pecking at and tearing down others to make them look weaker to satisfy our own insecurities, but never escaping the bustle and dust and the menagerie of the coop.


AnnMarie: While huffing is still a big favorite of many kids (they really like Axe brand products--so when you see tweeners and teenagers buying 12 bottles of the stuff it isn't so they will smell good), crushing and snorting pills from baby aspirin to Tylenol with codeine, to anything left over in the medicine cabinet, is the newest wave of drug use we will combat among young people. Make sure you clear your cabinets often and flush your old prescriptions, and stomp on your pill bottles until they are broken before putting them in the trash.

FYI. And by the way, seriously reconsider allowing your tweeners and teenagers having cell phones with photo sending and receiving capabilities. That's also the new wave of pornography viewing.
Ams

Melanie: Thanks AnnMarie. I didn't know the cell phone thing, but suspected it. I wish there were more spots in the universe that could protect our children. I hate to think of the onslaught that they face daily. I know parents are niave to even begin to understand what they face on a daily basis. I have been in the High School here, I know what a mixed bag they hold. It is horrible to think of the things that I don't see. Ben and Braden have had some tough experiences in the past two weeks. I am glad they tell me about them, but I always wonder, how much they don't tell me that I should know.

I will put the parental blocks on the children's phones.
Mel


Kimberly: We have not used the text/pic feature much on our phones and at the beginning of the year we actually blocked the text/picture on all our phones.  We figured that for that occasional conveience it would be to have that feature, it was not enough to have it on the phones.  It seems that our teens hardly use their cells, as they do not have the text/pic features. Who'd have thought that kids would rather text than talk on phones? Brigitta's good friend who moved to Chicago area in January came out for a vist couple of months ago and pleaded the case for Brigtta to have texting. I told her at the end of her stay she made the case stronger not in favor of texting, as she was on the phone the entire visit, no matter what she was doing.
Kimberly

Todd: I scared Michael with what he doesn't know. I showed him his Verizon bill where it tells me how many text and other messages he received in the month. I told him that online, I am able to click on that number on the bill and see everything.  For now, it is working.  His texting has been very minimal. It would be nice if the companies would really do that; however, there is a larger infrastructure and storage issue for them to worry about.  They already have to keep them, by law.

Shawn: One person that I work with said that his son (who is about Brigitta's age) was really into texting, and he told him one day that he felt really sorry for him. His son wondered why, and he pointed out that when he was a boy (as much as teenagers hate hearing about when we were kids) once he got home from school he was safe from peer pressure. Rarely would a friend call, and if they did the conversations were usually short. But he pointed out to his son (who had cell phone texting) that he is bombarded by peer pressure constantly, for as long as he is awake.

I had not thought about it that way before, although they may see it as "just a way to network with friends" it is actually also source of constant peer pressure, and makes the home less of a protective haven. In my mind, instant messaging while they are on the computer (especially when they should be doing homework) is a similar source of distraction and peer pressure. Couple with that the fact that so many of them are listening to mp3s all of the time, or watching television more than any previous generation with even more time devoted to advertising, and browsing the web where they are constantly bombarded by advertising and images, it is a wonder that they have any time to not compare themselves to others, or not worry so much about what others think, and to focus instead on their family or on spiritual promptings and on developing self-esteem from their own feelings of worth and accomplishment.

Our young women are going to girl's camp at Lake Lyman (Northeastern Utah). I think the area is lovely, there is a lot of wild life, some nice trees, a nice little lake, a nice lodge and cabins, and some lovely mountain meadow flowers and plants. It is one of the most wonderful places on earth. They ask the young women to leave home their cell phones, so they can enjoy the camp and all it has to offer. Of course, the young women or their leaders complain about the camp because it is too long of a drive, there are mice in the lodge, leeches in the lake, squirrels try to sneak in and steal their candy, there is not enough water for everyone to shower everyday, the out-houses stink, it is too hot in the day and too cold at night, and one or the other in the evening and morning. But one of the biggest complaints, and one thing that makes me like it all the more, is that it is a black hole for cell phone signals. I have heard it said that some of the girls fingers actually twitch the whole camp. We have to try to find someone with a satelite phone or with a hand-held ham radio to take care of possible emergencies, but that is worth the effort in my mind.

Myrna: I remember having time to sit under the maple tree and read a book, play with cousins and neighbors and, before bedtime, play hide 'n seek. In the winter, we always had playtime before supper. Then we would gather around the dining room table and do our homework. If we got done quickly, we would do art projects. Now all that time is gobbled up with the marvels of our electronic world. Sometimes, I think it is sad. It is not much different for adults than it is for kids, Shawn. We never get away from devices which, supposedly, were designed to make our lives better. I think I was happy when only Flash Gordon had a cell phone. But then again, they can be a great blessing. If a family needs contact, they can have it. By the way, sign me up for girl's camp. M