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drug Info: INHALANTS: Gas, Glues & Aerosols
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The term "inhalants" refers to more than a thousand household and commercial products that can be abused by inhaling them through one's mouth or nose for an intoxicating effect. These products are composed of volatile solvents and substances commonly found in commercial adhesives, lighter fluids, cleaning solvents, and paint products. Their easy accessibility, low cost, and ease of concealment make inhalants one of the first substances abused.
Inhalant users ingest substances in various ways including inhaling directly from containers for products such as rubber cement or correction fluid, sniffing fumes from plastic bags held over the mouth and nose, or sniffing a cloth saturated with the substance. The substance may be inhaled directly from an aerosol can or out of an alternative container such as a balloon filled with nitrous oxide. Some volatile substances release intoxicating vapor.
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Inhalants often cause sudden death. “Sudden sniffing death” can happen even when a person uses inhalants only once. Users die by suffocation, from choking on their vomit, or a heart attack because inhalants cause the heart to beat irregularly and more rapidly.
Other risks include: nausea, seizures and fatal accidents. Chronic use causes to liver, lung, and kidney problems as well as muscle weakness. Prolonged abuse negatively affects cognition, coordination movement, vision, and hearing when heated.
SOURCE Mind over INHALANTS NIDA |
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| COMMON NAMES |
 APPEARANCE & HOW IT IS TAKEN
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| Products such as lighter gas refills, aerosols containing products such as hair spray, deodorants and air fresheners, tins or tubes of glue, some paints, thinners and correction fluids. |
Sniffed or breathed into the lungs from a cloth or sleeve. Gas products are sometimes squirted directly into the back of the throat. |
| EFFECTS |
HEALTH RISKS |
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| • effects feel similar to being very drunk;
• users feel thick-headed, dizzy, giggly and dreamy;
• users may hallucinate;
• effects don’t last very long, but users can remain intoxicated all day by repeating the dose. |
• nausea, vomiting, black-outs and heart problems that can be fatal;
• squirting gas products down the throat may cause the body to produce fluid that floods the lungs and cause instant death;
• risk of suffocation if the substance is inhaled from a plastic bag over the head;
• accidents can happen when the user is high because their senses are effected;
• long-term abuse of glue can damage the brain, liver and kidneys.
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