The effects of a 1990s advertising campaign credited with reducing inhalant abuse among children are starting to wear off, and a new generation is at risk, U.S. experts said Thursday.
While abuse of many other drugs such as marijuana is declining, young teens are starting to experiment again with inhalants such as glue or nail polish, government and non-profit group experts said.
They said they will renew efforts to warn parents and children about the dangers of “huffing” or “sniffing," which can kill or leave users brain-damaged for life.
Those most likely to use them are young teens, the Partnership for a Drug-Free America said in a report.
New generation unaware of risks
The Partnership help organize an advertising campaign in 1995 that targeted children aged 9 to 17 and their parents. Groups including the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration agree it helped reduce inhalant use through its messages stressing the dangers of huffing.
“Today’s sixth-graders, who were too young to benefit from the campaigns of the 1990s, are now exposed to inhalant abuse as they enter middle school and are unaware of its risks,” the Partnership’s report reads.
Inhalants, from glue to spray-can computer keyboard cleaners, have always been the drug of choice for the younger set, said Dr. Nora Volkow, head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
“They are widely available. They are cheap,” Volkow told a news conference. “They are highly addictive. They are very toxic.”
Chemicals can cause sudden death, long-term damage
They can kill immediately by causing fatal heart arrhythmias, asphyxiating the user by sucking the oxygen from their lungs, or causing them to vomit and then suffocate.
Long-term abuse damages the brain’s white matter, first interfering with the ability to concentrate and later causing long-term cognitive damage.
“You start to see severe mental deterioration,” Volkow said.
She said the advertising campaign seemed to have helped. ”In 1996 12.5 percent of eighth graders (aged 13 and 14) had used inhalants in the last year,” she said.
“By 2002 we saw that number go down to 7.7 percent.” But then there was a 14 percent increase in 2003. “We need to bring back that campaign,” she said.
Steve Pasierb, president of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, said, “It’s important to note, these increases come against a backdrop of overall declining youth illicit drug use as well as declining alcohol and tobacco use.”
A key factor may be that fewer children view inhalants as a big risk, he said. The Partnership’s survey of 8,000 6th through 12th graders showed that in 2001, 68 percent of the 6th graders questioned agreed with the statement “sniffing or huffing things to get high can kill you” but in 2003 only 48 percent did.
For eighth graders the numbers fell from 73 percent to 63 percent.
An estimated 2.6 million youths aged 12 to 17 have used an inhalant, said Charles Curie, head of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. “It’s an epidemic overshadowed and ignored perhaps because it is not considered a quote, illegal, drug,” he said.
