At Home Depot, the young lady at the checkout station advised me that she may need to ask me for my birth date in order to purchase the aerosol can of texture. That confused me which, as my nearly-double-digit number of readers know, is easy to do. My gray hair, gray beard and the occasional protruding-from-my-shirt gray chest hair hardly peg me for anything less than the grandfatherly aged. But Steph was with me. So I asked if she meant mine or my daughter's age. It was mine. The young lady explained that young people have been known to "huff" aerosal products and some products require a birth date at purchase. She scanned the texture.
"Oh," she said, "I don't need your birth date."
Nonetheless, I decided to be a good father. I showed the can to Steph and told her, "Don't ever breathe this stuff. It'll kill you."
"No duh, Dad," with a "do you think I'm stupid or something?" expression and tone of voice.
But that's not what I wanted to tell you about.
In today's news, you get the impression that huffing inhalants is epidemic among young people in America. Here's part of the press release from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration:
More 12 year olds have used potentially lethal inhalants than have used marijuana, cocaine and hallucinogens combined, according to data released today by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in conjunction with the 18th annual National Inhalants & Poisons Awareness Week....
The need to increase awareness of this public health risk among physicians, parents and others cannot come too soon for Kevin Talley, the father of Amber Ann Suri, who died in February 2009 after huffing. Her parents suspected something was going on when they noticed she had a pungent smell, glassy eyes, and complained about sinus problems. Although she was taken to a doctor, her real problem was not identified and she was treated only for her sinus symptoms. She died shortly thereafter.
...
Young people sniff products such as refrigerant from air conditioning units, aerosol computer cleaners, shoe polish, glue, air fresheners, hair sprays, nail polish, paint solvents, degreasers, gasoline or lighter fluids. Youngsters intentionally inhale these substances to get high. Most parents are not aware that use of inhalants can cause “Sudden Sniffing Death” - immediate death due to cardiac arrest - or lead to addiction and other health risks.
SAMHSA data from the 2006-2008 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health show a rate of lifetime inhalant use among 12 year olds of 6.9 percent, compared to a rate of 5.1 percent for nonmedical use of prescription type drugs; a rate of 1.4 percent for marijuana; a rate of 0.7 percent for use of hallucinogens; and a 0.1 rate for cocaine use.
I remember seeing television reports of glue sniffing back in the 60's and reading about kids sniffing aerosol paint back in the 80's and 90's, so huffing is not a new problem. A 2001 brief from the National Drug Intelligence Center showed that huffing was on the increase in the 90's.
According to the 2000 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, the number of new inhalant abusers rose approximately 158 percent from an estimated 392,000 in 1990 to 1,010,000 in 1999. The primary user group was composed of 12- to 17-year-olds--over 636,000 had tried inhalants for the first time in 1999. This number is more than double that of the 18- to 25-year-old user group (276,000.) Almost 17 million individuals have experimented with inhalants at some point in their lives.
Inhalants are the fourth most abused substances in the United States among eighth, tenth, and twelfth graders; alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana are the top three, according to the 2000 Monitoring the Future Study. By the time adolescents reach the eighth grade, one in five has tried inhalants at least once. Prevalence of lifetime abuse has consistently been higher among eighth graders than among tenth and twelfth graders. In 2000, 18 percent of eighth graders, 17 percent of tenth graders and 14 percent of twelfth graders admitted having used inhalants at least once in their lifetime. Statistics showing higher lifetime use among eighth graders may be due to the fact that frequent inhalant abusers typically drop out of school and consequently do not participate in the tenth and twelfth grade surveys.
That sounded pretty bad back in 2001 so I thought I'd take a look at the report being referenced by the news and issued by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (The PDF version has more.) And there are even more charts here with a variety of breakdowns of the data.
And there's even more data than you can shake a can of paint at in the 2008 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
And after reading it I had to ask, "Did the person(s) writing the press release of the news article(s) even bother to read this?" Inhalant abuse is actually on the decline. That's not to say that inhalant abuse doesn't warrant attention, but the way this is presented in the news you'd think huffing was rampant. So what gives? The first sentence in the SAMSHA press release is puzzling.
More 12 year olds have used potentially lethal inhalants than have used marijuana, cocaine and hallucinogens combined....
I can't find the data that supports that statement in any of the reports. Marijuana alone has a much higher use than inhalants according to the charts they present. The press release continues:
SAMHSA data from the 2006-2008 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health show a rate of lifetime inhalant use among 12 year olds of 6.9 percent, compared to a rate of 5.1 percent for nonmedical use of prescription type drugs; a rate of 1.4 percent for marijuana; a rate of 0.7 percent for use of hallucinogens; and a 0.1 rate for cocaine use.
The word "lifetime", as defined in the 2008 National Survey means used at least once, not for the rest of their lifetime. But either way, I can't find where that information comes from.
Here's a report statement concerning first-time use:
In 2008, an estimated 2.9 million persons aged 12 or older used an illicit drug for the first time within the past 12 months. This averages to almost 8,000 initiates per day and is similar to the estimate for 2007. A majority of these past year illicit drug initiates reported that their first drug was marijuana (56.6 percent). Nearly one third initiated with psychotherapeutics (29.6 percent, including 22.5 percent with pain relievers, 3.2 percent with tranquilizers, 3.0 percent with stimulants, and 0.8 percent with sedatives). A sizable proportion reported inhalants (9.7 percent) as their first illicit drug, and a small proportion used hallucinogens as their first drug (3.2 percent).
And here's a couple statements about current use:
In 2008, 9.3 percent of youths aged 12 to 17 were current illicit drug users: 6.7 percent used marijuana, 2.9 percent engaged in nonmedical use of prescription-type psychotherapeutics, 1.1 percent used inhalants, 1.0 percent used hallucinogens, and 0.4 percent used cocaine.
Among youths aged 12 to 17, the types of drugs used in the past month varied by age group. Among 12 or 13 year olds, 1.5 percent used prescription-type drugs nonmedically, 1.2 percent used inhalants, and 1.0 percent used marijuana. Among 14 or 15 year olds, marijuana was the most commonly used drug (5.7 percent), followed by prescription-type drugs used nonmedically (3.0 percent), inhalants (1.3 percent), and hallucinogens (1.0 percent). Marijuana also was the most commonly used drug among 16 or 17 year olds (12.7 percent); it was followed by prescription-type drugs used nonmedically (4.0 percent), hallucinogens (1.6 percent), cocaine (0.7 percent), and inhalants (0.7 percent).
So what's up with all the hype when the good news is that the abuse of inhalants is actually going down?
No comments:
Post a Comment