Info on Inhalant Abuse

From the KungFuChem Blog:

Its “Inhalants Class” blog states:

• Inhalants are among the most dangerous of abused substances.
• All inhalants are dangerous despite wide variations in their chemistry
• With some inhalants the amount needed to produce a recreational effect is close to a fatal dose, and deadly outcomes demonstrate that the difference was too close for some deceased users to handle.
• Some users act as if they do not realize they need a continual supply of oxygen, and they administer inhalants in ways that cause suffocation.
  
• In addition to all these acute dangers, long-term use of many inhalants can produce nerve damage, impairing the ability to use arms and legs and hands and feet, damage verified scientifically.
• Another type of long-term damage appears to be assorted types of psychoses.
• Inhalant users can develop states of mind interfering with—or even preventing—their ability to function in society.
  
• Admittedly, some users avoid serious outcomes, just as some car drivers run red lights without harm. Escape, however, does not mean that danger should be disregarded.
  
• Generally, adult drug users shun most inhalants except as a choice of desperation if nothing else is available.
• Inhalant users tend to be teenagers or younger
• Sniffing is often a social event with acquaintances rather than a solitary pastime.
• As the 1960s began, the average age among 130 glue sniffers in Denver was 13.
• In this group 124 were male; most were lower-class Hispanics in trouble with school or law enforcement authorities; many had emotional problems.
  
• Another study found glue sniffers to have personalities matching those of alcoholics.
• Gasoline sniffers are often emotionally deprived teens from troubled families, typically living lower-class lives in rural areas, often members of native populations whose cultures havebeen devastated (American Indians in the United States, aborigines in Australia, Island peoples in the Pacific).
• Case studies of butane sniffers tell of lonely persons with difficulties at school or at home.
• A psychological test of 59 inhalant abusers found them to be impulsive persons with little respect for authority.
• Most research finds inhalant users to be unhappy persons marginalized by society.
• Yet not all researchers find that inhalant users are social misfits from dysfunctional families; some appear to be ordinary persons, though still youthful.
• For information about specific inhalants, see alphabetical listings for: butane,ether, refrigerant, gasoline, mothballs, nitrite, nitrous oxide, TCE, and toluene