Poison vapors: the truth about inhalants: inhalants can cause harm to the whole body, including long-lasting damage to the brain, physical disabilities, and even death.

• Position: HEADS UP REAL NEWS ABOUT DRUGS AND YOUR BODY

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WHAT IS AN INHALANT?

Inhalants are toxic--that is, poisonous--chemical vapors that can be misused to produce mind-altering effects, often with disastrous results.

These harmful vapors can be found in a variety of common household and office products, including nail polish remover, gasoline, aerosol sprays, correction fluid, whipped cream canisters, computer spray cleaners, paint thinners, and markers. Even when used for their intended purposes, such as cleaning or painting, these products are so toxic that they are recommended for use only in well-ventilated areas. That's to prevent people from accidentally breathing in the poison. When they are intentionally inhaled in order to experience a "high," they are known as inhalants, and can cause serious harm to the whole body. Abuse of certain inhalants may result in irreversible effects, including hearing loss, limb spasms, bone marrow damage, and damage to the central nervous system and brain. Serious but reversible effects may include liver and kidney damage and depletion of oxygen in the blood. An adequate blood oxygen level is critical to the function of every organ and tissue in our bodies.

HEADS UP: ONE TIME IS ONE TOO MANY

Inhalants are incredibly effective poisons. They enter the bloodstream quickly and are then distributed throughout the brain and body. They have direct effects on both the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) and the peripheral nervous system (nerves throughout the body).

How severely can inhalants harm you? According to Dr. David Shurtleff, who heads the Division of Basic Neurosciences and Behavior Research at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), they can affect your ability to think, talk, remember, hear, and even walk. They may be addictive, and they can wreak havoc on a healthy body from head to toe, causing hearing loss, vision loss, convulsions, and damage to the lungs, liver, kidneys, heart, bone marrow, and muscles.

Most frightening is that just one time can be one too many with inhalants. As explained by Dr. Nora D. Volkow, director of NIDA, "Even in an otherwise healthy person, a single session of abusing highly concentrated amounts of certain inhalants can lower oxygen levels enough to cause asphyxiation, or disrupt heart rhythms and cause death from cardiac arrest." There's a chilling name for this: sudden sniffing death. There are people--including teens and pre-teens--who have used inhalants and paid the...