Home Sweet Home – Safe and Sound? Not exactly. Your parents are not yet home from and you’re hosting the math project group. You take out the colorful markers, each with its own yummy smell, the rubber cement glue, and construction paper. Your sister is bored listening to you discuss math and decides to do her nails. Some polish spills on the carpet, so she gets ammonia from under the kitchen sink. You remind her that nail polish remover would work better.

In the corner you hear someone inhaling – Jason is sniffing the markers to see if they really smell like grape and orange. Instead of applying math problems to the construction paper, Jared starts snuffling the rubber cement. Your sister takes their lead and breathes in the nail polish remover fumes. What is going on? Suddenly your math project has turned into an inhalant fest.

Inside your medicine cabinet, under the kitchen sink, on a shelf in the basement there are killers. Fooling around with them, EVEN ONCE, can end your life. Glue, paint thinners, nail polish remover, cleaning aids, aerosol sprays, etc. have become the drugs of choice for a growing number of 9-16 year olds. These household products are easy to get, simple to use, and cost nothing. All a preteen or teenager has to have is a “nose” for trouble. And serious trouble is always the result of young people who sniff or “huff” inhalants. Almost immediately, they feel the “high” they are looking for. What you won’t feel until later, usually when it’s too late, is the damage the fumes have done to your brain. The chemical fumes in inhalants attack the user’s brain with greater speed and more force than most other substances. Even before the inhaler knows what’s happening, the chemicals can cause physical and mental damage that can’t be repaired.

Talk to your friends about the deadly use of inhalants. Begin by suggesting that he or she read about inhalants on the WARM2K Teen site. Share what you’ve learned together. You will probably agree that the RISK IS MUCH TOO HIGH for those trying to get their HIGH ON INHALANTS.