Inhalant Abuse on the Rise Among Children
(Washington Post) Diane Stem of Old Hickory, Tenn., vividly remembers the day she was called home by her distraught husband and daughter: Her 16-year-old son, Ricky Joe Stem Jr., had been found dead in the house with a plastic bag over his head. He had been sniffing Freon from the house's air-conditioning system. Marissa Manlove of Indianapolis got a call from a friend in June 2001 who told her that her 16-year-old son David Jefferis Manlove had dived into a swimming pool and not come up. The teenager died after breathing from a can of computer duster, using the nozzle as a straw to suck the chemical toluene inside. (...) A can of butane and a surgical glove were found with the body -- police told her they believed her son had been "huffing." (...) A hidden epidemic is gaining momentum in America, experts say. Children as young as fourth-graders are deliberately inhaling the fumes of dangerous chemicals from a variety of household and office products.