Forwarded; ""Dusting" death: kids inhaling Dust Off "

[benburch]

Folks,

I don't usually cut and paste stuff I get in email, but I do know this to be a true hazard even if this particular story is not true. And snopes verifies this.

Warn all parents you know about this.

-Ben

-----

"Dusting" death: kids inhaling Dust Off

If you know someone with children please pass this along to them. It is
a true story as the link at the bottom will show.

First I'm going to tell you a little about me and my family. My name is
Jeff. I am a Police Officer for a city which is known nationwide for its
crime rate. We have a lot of gangs and drugs. At one point we were # 2
in the nation in homicides per capita. I also have a police K-9 named
Thor. He was certified in drugs and general duty. He retired at 3 years
old because he was shot in the line of duty. He lives with us now and I
still train with him because he
likes it. I always liked the fact that there was no way to bring drugs
into my house. Thor wouldn't allow it. He would tell on you. The reason
I say this is so you understand that I know about drugs. I have taught
in schools about drugs. My wife asks all our kids at least once a week
if they used any drugs. Makes them promise they won't.

I like building computers occasionally and started building a new one in
February 2005. I also was working on some of my older computers. They
were full of dust so on one of my trips to the computer store I bought a
3 pack of DUST OFF. Dust Off is a can of compressed air to blow dust off
a computer. A few weeks later when I went to use them they were all
used. I talked to my kids and my 2 sons both said they had used them on
their computer and messing around with them. I yelled at them for
wasting the 10 dollars I paid for them. On February 28 I went back to
the computer store. They didn't have the 3 pack which I had bought on
sale so I bought a single jumbo can of Dust Off. I went home and set it
down beside my computer.

On March 1st I left for work at 10 PM. At 11 PM my wife went down and
kissed Kyle goodnight. At 530 am the next morning Kathy went downstairs
to wake Kyle up for school, before she left for work. He was sitting up
in bed with his legs crossed and his head leaning over. She called to
him a few times to get up. He didn't move. He would sometimes tease her
like this and pretend he fell back asleep. He was never easy to get up.
She went in and shook his arm. He fell over. He was pale white and had
the straw from the Dust Off can coming out of his mouth. He had the new
can of Dust Off in his hands. Kyle was dead.

I am a police officer and I had never heard of this. My wife is a nurse
and she had never heard of this. We later found out from the coroner,
after the autopsy, that only the propellant from the can of Dust off was
in his system. No other drugs. Kyle had died between midnight and
1 Am.

I found out that using Dust Off is being done mostly by kids ages 9
through 15. They even have a name for it. It's called dusting. A take
off from the Dust Off name. It gives them a slight high for about 10
seconds. It makes them dizzy. A boy who lives down the street from us
showed Kyle how to do this about a month before. Kyle showed his best
friend. Told him it was cool and it couldn't hurt you. Its just
compressed air. It can't hurt you. His best friend said no.

Kyle's death

Kyle was wrong. It's not just compressed air. It also contains a
propellant. I think its R2. Its a refrigerant like what is used in your
refrigerator. It is a heavy gas. Heavier than air. When you inhale it,
it fills your lungs and keeps the good air, with oxygen, out. That's why
you feel dizzy, buzzed. It decreases the oxygen to your brain, to your
heart. Kyle was right. It can't hurt you. IT KILLS YOU. The horrible
part about this is there is no warning. There is no level that kills
you. It's not cumulative or an overdose; it can just go randomly,
terribly wrong. Roll the dice and if your number comes up you die. IT'S
NOT AN OVERDOSE. Its Russian roulette. You don't die later. Or not feel
good and say I've had too much. You usually die as your breathing it in.
If not you die within 2 seconds of finishing "the hit." That's why the
straw was still in Kyle's mouth when he died. Why his eyes were still
open.

The experts want to call this huffing. The kids don't believe its
huffing. As adults we tend to lump many things together. But it doesn't
fit here. And that's why its more accepted. There is no chemical
reaction. no strong odor. It doesn't follow the huffing signals. Kyle
complained a few days before he died of his tongue hurting. It probably
did. The propellant causes frostbite. If I had only known.

Its easy to say hey, its my life and I'll do what I want. But it isn't.
Others are always affected. This has forever changed our family's life.
I have a hole in my heart and soul that can never be fixed. The pain is
so immense I can't describe it. There's nowhere to run from it. I cry
all the time and I don't ever cry. I do what I'm supposed to do but I
don't really care. My kids are messed up. One won't talk about it. The
other will only sleep in our room at night. And my wife, I can't even
describe how bad she is taking this. I thought we were safe because of
Thor. I thought we were safe because we knew about drugs and talked to
our kids about them.

After Kyle died another story came out. A Probation Officer went to the
school system next to ours to speak with a student. While there he found
a student using Dust Off in the bathroom. This student told him about
another student who also had some in his locker. This is a rather
affluent school system. They will tell you they don't have a drug
problem there. They don't even have a dare or plus program there. So
rather than tell everyone about this "new" way of getting high they
found, they hid it. The probation officer told the media after Kyle's
death and they, the school, then admitted to it. I know that if they
would have told the media and I had heard, it wouldn't have been in my
house.

We need to get this out of our homes and school computer labs.

Using Dust Off isn't new and some "professionals" do know about. It just
isn't talked about much, except by the kids. They know about it.

April 2nd was 1 month since Kyle died. April 5th would have been his
15th birthday. And every weekday I catch myself sitting on the living
room couch at 2:30 in the afternoon and waiting to see him get off the
bus. I know Kyle is in heaven but I cant help but wonder If I died and
went to Hell.

Jeff

This is on the Snopes site as a true story.

http://www.snopes.com/toxins/dustoff.asp

[LynzM]

1. I read about this a couple weeks ago

Talk to your kids about all substances that affect how you feel, not just 'legal' and 'known' illegal drugs... People are creative, and will always find new ways to explore mind and body-altering things...

[Warpy]

2. Oh, ferkrissakes, LEGALIZE POT

If kids could get their hands on a little pot, they'd never try Dust Off or gold spray paint or air conditioner fluid or even gasoline.

Dammit! There's a reasonably benign psychoactive drug that grows wild if you let it that will give the kiddies a high that won't KILL THEM.

Yet the DEA whips the suburban parents into hysterics over it, WHY?

It seems people would rather LET KIDS DIE chasing a high than legalize pot.

Give it up, drug warriors! Kids are going to look for a way to get high. Your only choice is to allow something that won't kill them or forbid it in favor of things that will.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. I agree

I also think it is interesting that I knew a bunch of kids who got high on freon in the 60s (you could buy it in a can at the auto parts store back then) and none of them died. But a can of air killed this kid?? hmmm

[SteppingRazor]

7. I dunno about kill, but..

a buddy of mine dropped and was out cold for a good 30 seconds after huffing the stuff (this was back in The Moronic Years, a.k.a. high school). So, I imagine it's fairly dangerous.

When will people learn? If you're going to huff something, just do whippets! :evilgrin:

[Dark]

11. Don't you mean, just whippet! Whippet good! ?

:evilgrin:

[K-W]

4. More importantly, we need to demystify drug use.

As long as we have this stigmatized mystical picture of drug use and being 'high' kids are going to flock to it. You couldnt design a better advertising campaign for adolescents. Our society makes adolescents want to get high.

[sweetheart]

5. another casualty of "drugs prohibition"

Typically, the clueless cop is warning us about the drugs, and not the
laws that killed his kid.

It is time to reconsider the drugs laws... the lot of them. They haven't
ever worked, and it's a sad tragedy that the dad won't tell the truth,
that the drug laws killed his son.

[K-W]

6. They dont just not work, they are blatently unconstitutional.

Nothing in the constitution gives the government the power to regulate which substances people are allowed to ingest.

Meanwhile the fact that some drugs are traded over state lines is used as a justification for federal drug laws that can be used to convinct people with substances they grow in thier backyard. This is called "regulating interstate commerce".

Not to mention that the war on drugs has long been an excuse for illegal government crackdowns against its domestic and foriegn opponants.

[Heddi]

8. This is nothing new--we were huffing that shit in the 90's when I was

in school

AquaNet in the blue bottle
Lysol spray
Dust off
airplane glue
spray paint

basically anything in aerosol form.

I only did the hairspray a few times and the lysol spray once or twice. Made me feel goofy. Like pot better.

Kids have been huffing this shit since aerosol was invented. Nothing new, but good information.

I remember sitting in my friend Kelli's bedroom huffing the FUCK out of lysol air spray. Her mom was outside the door asking what we were doing and she says "Cleaning my room" and her mom says "You sure are using alot of spray" and she said "My room was stinky" and we just laughed and laughed and laughed.

I became wise early. Sadly, many kids I went to school with became full-blown huffers of gasoline and spray paint. Would see them with gold and silver flakes on their face and hands from huffing like 4 bottles of metallic paint at a time before school. Sad, sad shit.

[Heddi]

9. Also added---I know of many stores that will not sell spraypaint to anyone

under the age of 18.

Hubby and I (both well over the age of 18) went to Wal-Mart several years ago to get some spray-paint for the house. He had his ID, but I didn't, and I was the one buying it.

Lady asked for my ID. Said I didn't have it. Said she couldn't sell it to me. Asked why not. Said it was "the law". Asked 'what law'. She said 'the law that prohibits us from selling spray paint to anyone under 18'

Hubby said "here's my ID" and she said "well I still can't sell it to you because she doesn't have her ID and you may be buying it for her"

At this point, hub became IRATE and said "Look. We're married. We need to spraypaint some furniture. There is no law that prohibits you from selling this to me. I want to see a manager right now"

She got manager.

Manager reitterated vague law, then after being asked to provide the statute of the law, he backed down and said it was store policy not to sell to anyone under 18.

Hubby asked why, then, the cashier couldn't sell it to him since HE had an ID, and he said the same thing as the cashier, that he could be buying it for me.

That was one of the last times we ever shopped at Walmart, and long long before we knew of other Walmart Horrors that solidified our boycott of their company.

We left, without the spraypaint, went next door to hardware store and bought the paint without being asked for ID.

[gulfcoastliberal]

10. If you want to huff something, huff on these:

http://www.easywhip.com/isiwhcrch1ca.html