America and Drugs - Inhalants

Today, I want to talk about a class of drugs you hear very little about, yet their use is widespread and they do an incredible amount of harm. I am talking about inhalants

Inhalants are just what they sound like, drugs that you  breath in. You inhale the fumes. As far as I know, they are all hydrocarbons and include various glues, many cleaning products, gasoline, transmission fluid and even no-stick pan sprays.

The high is a sort of drunken stupor mixed with dream-like hallucinations. Once, many years ago, just to see what the fuss was, I sniffed glue. After a few breaths, I fell back on the bed, closed my eyes and was attacked by a cartoonish green train made of something that looked like jello. Sounds funny, but it definitely was not A few minutes later, I got up staggered around, nauseous, with a splitting headache, and disposed of the glue. Remember, that was after a very brief exposure. Yet, I knew a lot of kids who spent a lot of time huffing the rotten stuff, and doing such idiotic things as trying to summon the Devil. I guess, in a way, they did.

I have known people who huffed gas, transmission fluid and carbon tetrachloride. The effects are always about the same; it does not seem to matter what is used as long as it is a hydrocarbon. That is the problem and why this subject is seldom brought up. All of these products are vital to the functioning of our society and cannot be banned or legislated against. Heck, they are all common products found in about every household. And kids have ready access to them.

It is hard to find exact statistics on the use of inhalants but they are widespread. Kids are drawn to them because they are easy to obtain and cheap. They cannot buy liquor, well, in theory they cannot, and they generally cannot put enough cash together to buy weed, so, they dig around the house and find cheap highs.

These drugs are extremely toxic. The body is badly damaged by their use and if it becomes chronic, the damage can be permanent. Especially damaged are the liver, kidneys, lungs and brain. Physical damage aside, their use puts you in a temporary state of psychosis and has led to very violent behavior. Yet, society ignores this problem, probably because there is no easy solution. I certainly have no suggestions, but sweeping it under the rug is definitely not a viable option.

I suppose the best and only solution is to have one of those often dreaded talks with your kids. Be blunt. Tell them the facts and hope that you have raised them to make sane decisions. If you catch them using inhalants, get them into some kind of treatment immediately. As far as adult usage, well I am afraid that any adult using inhalants is in a world of trouble and is not likely to be around for long. To say we have a war on drugs is ridiculous when we ignore such damaging substances.

America and Drugs, Some Facts and Thoughts

For more than 40 years, going back to Nixon, America has been fighting a so called War on Drugs, and losing. We have spent an amazing amount of money on law enforcement and treatment centers and we have a bigger problem that ever. One would think that one of our leaders would say, "Hey, we need a new approach," but, alas, no. Instead, they wring their hands and bemoan the problem and promise action and then continue doing the same things. Such madness must stop.

I am going to write a series on drugs and try to tell you folks the truth about them. You see, much of what we have been taught about these chemicals is nonsense. I am not anti-drug, but I am against ridiculously harmful drugs and I am against the mis-use of any drug. I have a bit, well okay, a lot of experience with these various substances, some personal and some from dealing with the problems of my friends and families.

First. let's be honest. We all, with only a very few exceptions, use drugs. Just today, I have consumed nicotine, caffeine, naproxen, pseudoephedrine, and soon will have a little alcohol, and trust me, many, many folks will have similar patterns of consumption and we would not be considered to be drug users by most people because we do not consume illegal drugs. Yet, if I upped my consumption of those chemicals by just a little bit, I could catch a fairly good buzz. We all use drugs, we just have to use them wisely and we cannot do that until we learn about them.

Over the next few posts, I will cover, depressants, stimulants, inhalants, delirients, tranquilizers, opiates, and hallucinogens. I will also touch on drugs used by psychiatrists and give special attention to two drugs that are hard to classify, alcohol and marijuana.

I hope you will read this series because it is important that we develop a realistic approach to drug use. These chemicals should not be irrationally feared nor should they be taken haphazardly and, of course, many of them should never be touched. One thing for sure, what we are doing is not working.