Inhalant Abuse Among Children

It has been noted that the perceptions of risk and danger of inhalants have decreased because it is not talked about. The abuse has escalated in school-age children by 44 percent over a two-year period because fewer and fewer children see inhalant abuse as a risk. The perception that huffing and sniffing inhalants can kill you fell among school-age children.

Most parents do not realize that the sniffing and huffing of inhalants can kill. The parents are more focused on the use of other drugs. We appear to be in the midst of “Not My Child Syndrome”. If parents don’t talk to their children about the dangers of inhalant abuse, the trend will continue to spiral upward.

Of the children that started using inhalants at the ages of 13 to 14, those is this group were 6 times more likely to be dependent on inhalants than those who started using at the ages of 15 to 17.

Children that were placed in the foster care system were 5 times more likely to become dependent on inhalants than those never placed away from home. Of further note, children who were treated for mental health problems were more than two times more likely to be dependent on inhalants.

children who abuse other drugs or were dependent on other drugs were also likely to use inhalants and were about four times more likely to be diagnosed with inhalant abuse and about nine times more likely to be diagnosed with inhalant dependence.

It seems that boys were more likely to use gasoline or nitrous oxide, while girls favored glue, shoe polish, spray paints, correction fluid, and aerosol sprays. It is also reported that about 60 percent of those children who reported inhalant use in the past year also said that they used more than one type
of inhalant.

A new report was issued just recently that says children are getting inside air conditioners to siphon off the refrigerant, often with tragic results. There have been several fatality reports concerning this type of sniffing and or huffing.

In studies on drug abuse, there seems to be a trend that shows an early use of inhalants may be a precursor for later drug abuse that grows to include abuse of multiple illegal substances. Children and adolescents who abuse inhalants are at substantial risk of illness and death so it is important for prevention programs to target children when they are young.

Inhalants, is there a Gender Issue?

Approximately 169,000 persons are dependent on or abuse inhalants, of those approximately 104,000 are between the ages of 12 to 17 ( it is to be noted that this age ratio is greater for inhalants than any other substance. Females start abusing inhalants earlier than males.

It has been noted that male lifetime use of inhalants is greater than that of females but in the past few months the trend is shifting and females are using inhalants more frequently than males. the use by males has been declining in the past few months. For the past 12 years, at the 8th-grade level, females used inhalants more than males, and at the 10th-grade level, inhalant use in females has exceeded that of male use.

This means that for some reason inhalant abuse among females is on the rise while declining for males. Perhaps this is because the female population is not given as strong an inhalant warning as the male population.

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