Death By Huffing

By John DiConsiglio
Courtesy of Scholastic Choices

Ashley Upchurch was a top student with a pack of friends. She was never in trouble with her parents or teachers. As a result, no one suspected that Ashley and her friends were regularly getting high and had been doing so since they turned 11.

"We got good grades, people looked up to us, we were popular kids," Ashley, now 17, tells Choices, "and when we went behind closed doors, we were huffing duster."

Ashley was one of 2.6 million teenagers who get high by sniffing the fumes from inhalants--common products like lighter fluid and nail-polish remover. Most kids at school knew Ashley and her friends were huffing, but teachers and parents never had a clue. Unlike with other drugs, there were no telltale signs of abuse--no empty beer bottles and no scent of marijuana smoke to give them away. "They had no idea," Ashley says. "We did it everywhere--in cars, our bedrooms.

Ashley is one of the lucky ones. She quit huffing two years ago when she realized "these highs nearly destroyed my life." Each year, more than 100 teens die from inhalant abuse, some on their very first huff.

"People don't know just how common inhalant abuse is among young people," says Jennifer Caudle, director of family medicine at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. "Inhalants are easy to get because they're cheap and legal to buy."

Inhalants can be found pretty much everywhere: under the kitchen sink, in a closet, in a garage. "It was extremely easy to get the stuff I inhaled because you could buy it in a store, you could steal it, or you could even steal it from your parents' computer room," Ashley says.

Sniffing inhalants cuts the oxygen supply to your brain and lungs. The toxic fumes dissolve the protective covering around your brain cells. As this coating deteriorates, messages travel ever more slowly through your brain. That can cause muscle spasms, tremors, and permanent damage to your speech and memory. Inhalant abuse can also lead to problems with your heart, lungs, liver, and kidneys.

About half of all inhalant-related deaths are caused by accidents, like car crashes involving drivers who are high on inhalants. Most frightening is a fatal condition called sudden sniffing death syndrome. A person's very first sniff can speed up his or her heart so drastically that he or she suffers a heart attack and dies. "There's no way to predict it," says Christopher Cathcart of the Consumer Specialty Products Association, which represents companies that make household products. "Even if one kid is using something and getting a buzz, his friend can use the same product and die from the first sniff."

Her days of huffing behind her, Ashley warns anyone she can about the dangers of abusing inhalants. "You're not going to look glamorous when your parents find you dead in your room because you were huffing," she says.