Help Educate Your Community about the Dangers of Inhalant Use During National Inhalants and Poisons Awareness Week

Mark your calendars for National Inhalants and Poisons Awareness Week (NIPAW), observed March 18 – 24. NIPAW is an opportunity to raise awareness of the dangers of inhalants and to get your community engaged on this issue. This year celebrates the 20th anniversary of the event.

NIPAW is designed to mobilize people and communities in a public health campaign to reduce and prevent instances of experimentation with or misuse of common household, school and office products and chemicals.

One in five students in America has used an inhalant to get high by the time he or she reaches the eighth grade. Parents don't know that inhalants, cheap, legal and accessible products, are as popular among middle school students as marijuana. Even fewer know the deadly effects the poisons in these products have on the brain and body when they are inhaled or "huffed." Both dusting and huffing can result in damage to the brain, lungs, heart, kidneys and liver, and can cause “sudden sniffing” death. Experts say death can happen even the first time someone huffs.

Some common products abused as inhalants include model airplane glue, rubber cement, household glue, spray paint, hairspray, air freshener, deodorant, fabric protector, computer keyboard cleaner, nail polish remover, paint thinner, toxic markers, pure toluene, cigar lighter fluid, gasoline, carburetor cleaner, octane booster, spot remover, degreaser, vegetable cooking spray, dessert topping spray (whipped cream), nitrous oxide, butane, propane, helium and especially computer keyboard cleaner, referred to as “dusting.”

Harvey Weiss, Director of the National Inhalant Prevention Coalition (NIPC) in Chattanooga, Tenn. that organizes the campaign, said, “We must note that most professionals appreciate that inhalant deaths may go unnoted and underreported.”

To get your coalition involved in the campaign, visit www.inhalants.org.

New Online Marijuana Resource Center Available to Coalitions

Marijuana is a topic of significant public discourse in the United States, and while many are familiar with the discussions, it is not always easy to find the latest, research-based information on marijuana to answer to the common questions about its health effects, or the differences between Federal and state laws concerning the drug.

Confusing messages being presented by popular culture, media, proponents of “medical” marijuana, and political campaigns to legalize all marijuana use perpetuate the false notion that marijuana is harmless. This significantly diminishes efforts to keep young people drug free and hampers the struggle of those recovering from addiction.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy opposes legalization of marijuana and other drugs because legalization would increase the availability and use of illicit drugs, and pose significant health and safety risks to all Americans, particularly young people. This Web-based resource center provides the general public, community leaders, and other interested people with the facts, knowledge, and tools to better understand and address marijuana in their communities.

This resource center will be regularly updated and expanded to address emerging issues, research, and prevention tools, and highlight successful local efforts to reduce marijuana use.

For more information, visit

http://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/frequently-asked-questions-and-facts-about-marijuana

Early Intervention Proven to be Best Strategy for College Binge Drinking

The Penn State Live website this week reported on new “early intervention” research conducted by their own scholars that may help students from becoming binge drinkers.

"Research shows there is a spike in alcohol-related consequences that occur in the first few weeks of the semester, especially with college freshmen," said Michael J. Cleveland, research associate at the university’s Prevention Research Center and the Methodology Center. "If you can buffer that and get beyond that point and safely navigate through that passage, you reduce the risk of later problems occurring."

The researchers tested two different methods of intervention on incoming freshmen— parent-based intervention and peer-based intervention. Cleveland and his colleagues found that students who were nondrinkers before starting college, and who received the parent-based intervention, were unlikely to escalate to heavy drinking when surveyed again during the fall semester of their first year.

Students who were heavy drinkers during the summer before college were more likely to transition out of that group if they received either parent-based intervention or peer-based intervention. However, if a heavy-drinker received both interventions, there was no enhanced effect.

Cleveland also reported online in Psychology of Addictive Behaviors that 8 percent of the incoming freshmen were heavy drinkers the summer before starting college. The researchers surveyed the students again during the fall semester and found 28 percent of the freshmen now drank heavily.

The results of the study were based on a study of 1,275 high-risk matriculating college students originally conducted in 2006 by Rob Turrisi, professor of biobehavioral health. Turrisi and his colleagues randomly assigned students to one of four intervention groups—parent-based intervention only, peer-based intervention only, both parent- and peer-based intervention or no intervention—and then surveyed the students on their drinking behaviors the summer before they entered college and then again during their first fall semester.

To read more about this research, visit Penn State’s website.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism both supported this research.