Help Prevent Inhalant Abuse Among Youth

Surveys have indicated a disturbing and potentially fatal trend in communities across the country: inhalant use among teenagers and young children. National Inhalants & Poisons Awareness Week, taking place March 16-23, 2008, presents an opportunity to bring this issue to the radar screen and to launch community-wide prevention campaigns about this alarming trend.

Data from the 2006 National Survey on Drug Use & Health found that an annual average of about 1.1 million youths aged 12 to 17 used an inhalant in the 12 months prior to being surveyed. The types of inhalants most frequently mentioned as having been used in the past year by new users were: glue, shoe polish, or toluene, gasoline or lighter fluid, nitrous oxide or "whippets", and spray paints.

National Inhalants & Poisons Awareness Week (NIPAW), created by the National Inhalant Prevention Coalition (NIPC), is an annual media-based, community-level program that is designed to increase understanding about the use and risks of inhalant involvement and involve all sectors of the community in the prevention effort.

“Inhalants are usually the first substances that a young person will get involved with. If you can get a child to make the appropriate choices for themselves early on, you stand a better chance for them to not get involved in other things, said Harvey Weiss, Executive Director of NIPC. “Education and awareness are the cornerstones of inhalant prevention and local coalitions can join the more than 700 participants from across the country in this effort.”

A number of tools and resources will be available at www.inhalants.org to help coalitions integrate inhalant prevention in their community-wide drug prevention strategy, including a local coordinator’s kit.

Editor’s note: Harvey Weiss will be among CADCA’s guests for the CADCA TV show “Household Highs” which airs March 27, 2008 from 1-2 p.m.