'Huffing' Can Kill Your Child

[dArKeR]

Abuse of inhalants by middle school children has increased by up to 44 percent over a two-year period, according to a new data analysis conducted by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.

The data is taken from the Partnership's most recent national survey on drug use, and shows that over the past two years, inhalant abuse increased by 18 percent (from 22 to 26 percent) among 8th graders and by 44 percent (from 18 to 26 percent) among 6th graders.

Inhalant abuse is commonly known as "huffing" and as CBS News Correspondent Mika Brzezinski reports, it can have tragic consequences:

Toy Slayton's teenage son, Johnson Bryant, had a bright future.

He got good grades at an exclusive private school and by sophomore year had made the varsity football team. He looked as healthy and normal and beautiful as any mother would want her son to be.

"Kids make bad choices. And this one cost him his life," Slayton said.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/01/eveningnews/main620528.shtml

Isn't it common sense that a fresh (God's) plant grown in God's Earth with water and sunshine would be much healthier to 'Puff' than a bunch inorganic compounds bonded by DuPont Chemical?

[KissMyAsscroft]

1. Darwin Award.

...

[Skip Intro]

2. I'm gonna say it

(on edit: I know this story is about a child's tragic actions, but I feel it to be just one more in a continuing effort by the pdfa to champion restricted freedoms in this nation - and that really gets me. That's where I'm coming from here)


Fuck the Partnership for a Drug Free America.

To use a child's death to promote a fraudulent and anti-freedom crusade is beyond dispicable.

I remember hearing about "huffing" quite a good many years ago when I was in high school. Its a fact, and its born of ignorance and authoritarian "because I say so" bullshit from so-called authorities.

If the truth, the effin' TRUTH, was simply provided to the public of this "free" nation, with the choices left to the (adult) individuals, lives would be saved.

The PDFA rails against marijuana as much as "huffing" or ecstacy or whatever the anti-freedom forces in this country believe to be the "threat" to thier "right thinking" dream world.

The bottom line to me here is, remembering that drug use is an ADULT decision, this is a free nation. This is my body. I don't need the PDFA telling me what I should and shouldn't allow into MY body any more than I need john ascroft or pat robertson telling me what I need to allow or not allow into my mind.

The truth is the truth.

How many lives might have been saved had the mystery been stripped away from, say, herion - by simply providing facts (dangers, dosage, and maybe even product standards) rather than some "just say no" crap?

I might wish to edit this post tomorrow, as it is just streaming from my love of freedom at the moment (I feel exactly the same way about gambling and prostitution). But damn, enough with the fear tactics and lies.

If this government has to be invovled, just provide the facts and leave the CHOICES up to ME.

Its my effin' body.

[Old and In the Way]

3. Don't edit a word of it!

Well stated nu_duer. These anti-drug commercials piss me off as well. When I see disinformation spread as public service it makes me vomit. Case in point, equating a drowning kid with parents smoking pot. I want to see the hard data that backs this assertion. How many kids have drowned because their parents were smoking pot? Let's compare this to parents drinking alcohol. And parents drinking coffee. And parents just not paying attention to what their kids were doing.

I'm all for social education that discourages ALL drug use for kids....but, to your point, when a person becomes an adult, they are responsible for their actions. The only reason pot is kept illegal is because there's way too much money being made by way too few people. And the booze companies don't want to lose any discretionary dollars competing with their products. As a lifelong user of both pot and booze, I know that alcohol is far worse on many levels than pot.

[uncle ray]

6. yup

not that i encourage a child to smoke pot, but if this kid had fired up a joint instead, he would still be here.

bottom line is, people ARE going to get high. you can't stop them. might as well get high off harmless marijuana than paint and shit that kills brain cells.

but then i'm a pot smoker who has no problem turning down "hard" drugs. what the fuck do i know?

[wtmusic]

7. "Huffing is borne of authoritarian 'because I say so' bullshit

from so-called authorities"?

HTF do you figure that? (this oughta be good)

[struggle4progress]

4. Part of what kills kids is adults who lie.

"They lied about everything else, so they're probably lying about this, too," was not an uncommon attitude among my teenage friends, many years ago.

You want kids to believe you when you warn about inhaling solvents? Then make it a general rule to tell the f***ing truth about stuff, like WMDs in Iraq.

[John_H]

5. But puffing is OK says GOP donating big tobacco n/t

[Piperay]

8. Are the rest of us supposed

to do without our "Pam" just because some kids don't know how to handle the stuff responsibly, DAMN. :argh: :eyes: <sarcasm>

[skooooo]

9. Anyone dumb enough to huff....

...sheesh. Even as kids we knew this would cause brain damamge.

[BiggJawn]

10. 40 years ago, they called them "Glue Sniffers"...

Model airplane glue had solvents like Acetone and Tolulene in it that would buzz you. Then they started putting mustard oil in the stuff that made it irritating to "sniff".

This is an OLD problem. Wonder why they haven't blamed Al-Kaseltzah for THIS yet?

[jmowreader]

11. Does anyone remember Duco Cement?

I remember from school an anti-Glue Sniffing propaganda film that told you exactly how to do it--you buy a tube of Duco Cement (an early solvent-based glue--Duco meant "DuPont Company," I guess, because DuPont made it), get a dry-cleaning bag, put half the tube of Duco Cement in the bag, then tie the bag around your damn fool head. You wouldn't die of asphyxiation because Duco Cement had such a solvent action it would eat its way through the side of the bag before you ran out of air.

"But if you do this you will destroy your brain and instead of being a hardworking Benefit To Society, you will be a drooling Drain On Our Resources." Naturally, none of us ever wanted to be a drooling Drain On Our Resources, so all the people in class who might have been prone to doing this swore off Duco Cement for life. Pot would have to do. (Then we got the infamous "this is your brain, this is your brain on pot" ad, which engendered the equally infamous "this is your brain, this is your brain on pot, this is your brain on pot with a side of bacon and hash browns and a glass of orange juice" t-shirt.)

Take one whiff of Duco Cement and you'll see why you shouldn't do this--the smell of that shit brings tears to your eyes.

They have to bring out these ads every year, it seems, because now that school is out the Impressionable Youth Of Today Are Bored And Must Be Entertained At Every Waking Moment...and if we don't supply them with a constant litany of basketball games, dances, tours and other organized recreational and educational opportunities, they'll just sit on the stoop all day sniffing aromatic solvents.

The best part of these PDFA studies is they never make recommendations that make sense. "How to stop black children from sniffing Sikaflex Construction Sealant: if anyone who is black and under the age of 18 buys a tube of Sikaflex, follow his ass back to the hood and bust him in front of his friends." And then you find out that the boyz in the hood have been listening to me and buying Sikaflex because it's the best stuff to caulk subwoofer boxes with. (I have a customer who's a 19-year-old black kid who buys 12 tubes of this stuff a week. He runs a successful speaker box company. How many 19-year-olds do you know who have an employer identification number? This guy does.) The quickest way to stop someone from sniffing Sikaflex is to let them get a whiff of it--it won't make you high, but it will make you sick to your stomach. Uhh...maybe if we quit defunding the recreation centers and the libraries in the hood, and we quit trying to NCLB the inner-city schools into oblivion, we won't have this problem.

[Kolesar]

12. Huffing killed my neighbor in 1972

He was a violent asshole. The world is better without him. His whole family was a bunch of violent thieves, muggers, and vandals.