Pubdate: Sun, 25 Feb 2001
Source: Inquirer (PA)
Copyright: 2001 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc
Contact:  400 N. Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19101
Website: http://inq.philly.com/content/inquirer/home/
Forum: http://interactive.phillynews.com/talk-show/
Author: Connie Langland, Brian Woodward

THE TEEN STALKER BENEATH THE SINK

It's a lesson learned but not learned: Huffing can kill.Two years ago, 
huffing - inhaling chemicals from aerosol spray cans - caused a car crash 
in which five Delaware County teenagers died.On Friday, the Chester County 
coroner ruled that Morgan Kelly, 17, of Berwyn, who died when her car hit a 
tree on Feb. 3, had inhaled aerosol fumes moments before the crash and 
probably lost consciousness.What young people don't know about the dangers 
of inhalants is killing them, according to bereft parents as well as 
coroners and substance-abuse experts."Kids don't have the image that [an 
inhalant] is illegal or harmful to them," Chester County coroner Rodger 
Rothenberger said Friday."You can go out and get it at the store, so that 
means it can't be that bad, or they'd take it off market.

It doesn't last a long time, so it must be one of those quick thrills that 
must be all right."Parents and educators also seem not to recognize the 
dangers."I probably talk to 100 families per year whose children have died 
as a direct result of inhalant abuse," said Harvey Weiss, executive 
director of the National Inhalant Prevention Coalition in Austin, 
Texas.Time and again, he said, he hears parents say, "I never dreamt my 
child would do this stuff."The typical user, Weiss said, is white, 
suburban, middle class and female.

Inhalant use starts in the preteen years, although Weiss is tracking a 
recent increase in the illegal use of nitrous oxide among older teens and 
people in their 20s.Two nitrous-oxide deaths were reported recently in 
South Jersey - that of a 16-year-old girl in Bordentown and that of a 
23-year-old man in Audubon.Weiss said his organization received 2,500 phone 
calls - most of them from the Philadelphia area - two years ago after 
huffing was cited in the deadly Chester Heights car crash.The trouble with 
inhalants is that they are ubiquitous, as common as cans of whipped cream, 
air freshener, and computer-keyboard cleaner, the product blamed in Kelly's 
death and in those of the five Penncrest High School girls."It's the stuff 
under the kitchen sink," said Anne Rickards of Essington, Delaware County, 
whose son, Joey, 14, was found dead in the town park in January 1995, a 
butane canister in his hand.The boy's father had warned him of the dangers 
of inhaling, and after Joey's death, Anne Rickards held workshops to carry 
the message to other children.She said young people need to be warned."It's 
all the stuff we worried about when they were toddlers, when we would say, 
'No, get away from that,' stuff we thought they would swallow.

Well, the spray can also kill them as teenagers."Gail Bustaque of Leola, 
Pa., found her son, Freddy Jr., 16, dead in his room, a can of air 
freshener nearby, six years ago."I don't think my son thought he was doing 
anything dangerous," Bustaque said Friday. "It wasn't illegal.

It was air freshener that you could buy at the market."Weiss thinks 
inhalants should be regarded as poisons."Parents feel more comfortable 
speaking about poisons than about drugs," he said, and the danger of 
poisoning is "a message that young people can comprehend at a very young 
age."In Texas, that approach has had an impact: Inhalant use there has 
declined 50 percent over the last two years, Weiss said.National data, 
however, are hard to come by. Since July 1996, nearly 700 deaths have been 
reported to Weiss' group.A study conducted two years ago by the U.S. 
Consumer Product Safety Commission found that one in five teenagers 
nationwide admitted to having used inhalants to get high by the time he or 
she had left high school."But the main news is that there is a huge 
disparity between what parents think the kids are doing and what they are 
actually doing," said Ken Giles, a spokesman for the commission.In the same 
study, 95 percent of parents said they did not think their children had 
used inhalants.The Federal Hazardous Substances Act requires labels on most 
household cleaning products warning of the potential harm of inhaling 
chemicals.

The law applies to cans of compressed air containing difluroethane, Giles 
said.At Rubenstein's Office Supplies in West Chester, owner Michael 
Rubenstein said the store sells about five cans of compressed air a month.

He said he first heard about teens' inhaling the air two years ago - when 
huffing was linked to the death of the five girls."I don't think there is 
anything that can be done about it," he said. "At some point, people just 
have to be responsible for what they do."Rubenstein said most of the cans 
his store sells are delivered directly to businesses in the area. He has 
recently begun keeping only four or five on the shelf at a time, to limit 
availability and to help curb shoplifting, he said.One of the more 
aggressive policies is at Pep Boys stores, where clerks are required to 
check the ID of any customer trying to buy such chemicals as paint thinner, 
spray paint and urethane.Computerized cash registers require clerks to 
enter customers' driver's-license number before completing such sales."That 
is partially to cut down on graffiti," said Brian McDaid, a manager of the 
West Chester Pep Boys store, "and partially to prevent kids looking to 
inhale the fumes." Staples, which has 31 stores in the Philadelphia area, 
carries Duster II, the brand linked to both car crashes. Company 
spokeswoman Jen Rosenberg said that the chain had sent warnings to all its 
stores about compressed air canisters' being used for huffing but that it 
did not have a policy prohibiting sales to minors.Weiss said huffing may be 
popular among suburban youngsters for a simple reason: access."A person 
doesn't have to go somewhere seedy to get this stuff," he said. "Kids have 
died from inhalants in schools and in church.

It can happen anywhere."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens