Straight-A teen dies after inhaling computer cleaner amid 'huffing' trend

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/201...ling-computer-cleaner-amid-huffing-trend?lite

A 14-year-old honor student from Northridge, Los Angeles, died this week after inhaling computer keyboard cleaner, a growing trend among students as young as eighth grade.

"I'm positive my daughter didn't realize it had the potential to kill her," Carolyn Doherty said.

Aria Doherty, a straight-A student at Nobel Middle School, died Monday. She’d been home alone for a couple of hours when she inhaled the duster.

Her parents believe it was her first time huffing -- also known as bagging or dusting.

Her older sister found Aria in bed with a can of compressed air still attached to her mouth, her nostrils taped shut. A plastic bag was found nearby.

"I would give anything to have her back," said Richard Doherty, Aria’s father. "It just took her, like that."
"I just miss her. I wish she was here. It doesn't seem real," he said through tears.

'Death can happen very quickly'

The Dohertys kept no dangerous weapons in their Porter Ranch home, stored prescription drugs under lock and key, and recently purged their home of all alcohol. They talked to their teen daughters about the dangers of substance abuse.

But authorities said the practice of huffing does not involve the typical chemical culprits. Inhaling household cleaners, paint or glue offers a quick high and they’re accessible.

"Death can happen very quickly. It can happen the first time," said Kezia Miller, a counselor with the Los Angeles Unified School District.

cont. http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/201...ling-computer-cleaner-amid-huffing-trend?lite

I remember a kid attending my friend's university his freshman fall semester. I could tell he had a strong taste for drugs when toward the end of the semester, he resorted to stealing duster from walgreens after he ran out of his parents money to roll/trip/smoke/drink constantly.

He ended up getting expelled right before the end of the semester and sent to rehab. I still wonder if that guy still steals duster.

she looked like a soul with quite some potential to thrive in life to.

Need to get these kids some real drugs. If she had foind dads vicoden or moms vodka she would still be alive. Kids are going to experiment with drugs if i was a parent i would simply want to control which ones

crimsonjunk said:

Need to get these kids some real drugs. If she had foind dads vicoden or moms vodka she would still be alive. Kids are going to experiment with drugs if i was a parent i would simply want to control which ones

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true man imon the same position, kids are going to experiment no matter what. Sad for the girl, but this is what happens because of media disinformation on drugs, kids inhale duster instead of i dont know ppoppin som pills, smoking weed getting drunk. I started drugs at 12, but never inahled duster or glue or gasoline. fuck that better stay sober than do that nasty shit

"growing trend" my ass.

I wonder if there were ether trends in the 19th century.

I love the smell of ether.

Another sad story that could have been avoided, if only the poor girl had access to some fact-based drug education.

There was - etheromania. It was especially popular during the Temperance movement in the early 1900's, because of coruse it's not the devil alcohol, so it must be morally alright. It was also a favourite ingredient in "medicines" for women and "sleeping medication" like Hofmann's drops (1pt ether in 3pts absolute alcohol)

For more information on this kind of socially driven fearmongering, I highly recommend reading How To Launch A Nationwide Drug Menace, about glue sniffing and how it was never a problem before the media decided to publicise the fact that it's a "legal, easily accessible powerful and dangerous high".

^hmm, interesting, sek

Yeah, I think it's something a few desperate people try, get a mouth full of bitterant which taints the nasty dissociative high, and then it's used to actually clean your fucking keyboard.

If you're lucky (read:unlucky), your first time will be with one of the few types that for whatever reason, engineering or concentration of bitterant, the effect is barely noticable, and you will use it like N2O and then very quickly start to feel it is nasty for you and stop.

I think that's the average experience with it.

Crimson Junk said it above, but if the parents hadn't taken all the alcohol away, the girl would probably still be alive.
People are going to get high.
Straight-A students get high too.
The trick is science-based education, and also a healthy respect for the fact that people simply WILL use drugs.
If you just tell your kids "no", it is not better than the DARE propaganda.
I bet the parents wish they could go back in time and offer their 14-year old some cannabis.
People would jump all over them for it, and they could go to jail, but the girl would still be alive today.
Inhalants are really bad news. The "high" effects are due to brain damage.
Really sad that the girl didn't know this, and one more beautiful person was lost from this world.

I tried "huffing" paint back in the day. It never actually got me high, just killed brain cells lmao 8)


never got desperate enough to shoot air duster down my throat... THANK GOD.




I also knew a kid who huffed quite often.. "shoe polish" is what he said he used. Apparently had very vivid experiences on it too, but he was a fucking idiot overall. Actually sold him a joint rolled with Catnip once lmao... the funniest part was, he came up to me saying how dank it was

Wonder what happened to him.

Solvents seem to give pretty harsh, unrefined highs.

thats terribly sad. Im confused tho. how does one attach the airduster can to their mouth? was it literally frozene, or did she tape it to herself, because she did tape her nose shut, which ive also never heard of? Ive never heard of someone actually dying from true airduster. Ive heard of people getting frost bite on their esophagus and lungs and then died from that.

stil aweful tho. world needs goods drugs.

Did this once in college. Pretty dumb. Also smoked out of the same moldy gourd for months.

As for the duster.. we were desperate. I think we always had weed but limited as there were so many heads. Just stupid though. Glad it was just the once.

The thing with solvents is that it is actually 'russian roulette' and can kill you at any point using them, maybe if the papers never said that about every drug people would realise that for once its actually true.

Inhalants are really bad news. The "high" effects are due to brain damage.

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Technically, no. The effects are *inseperable* from brain damage, but brain damage is not what causes it. Most of these inhalant gases are vaguely similar to the olde-fashioned anesthetic ethyl chloride or chloroethane. Chloroethane actually 'looks like" ethanol in your body so it works pretty good as an intoxicant.The problem is, these drugs act as a kind of "super alcohol" as well as being reactive species that will attach themselves to protien molecules permanently. They have very short half lives that encourage abuse/bingeing. And, as we figured out a while back, some people's hearts decide to shut down when exposed to haloalkanes.

The fluoroethanes commonly used in duster today are worse; they are metabolised to hydrogen fluoride, a very nasty poison.

I remember one time in rehab meeting a kid who ate some kind of paint remover jelly. It freaked me out thinking who tried it the first time not knowing if it would like eat away your insides.

I did chloroethane once it was decent. It was a lot like being drunk and it didn't taste bad, it was sold as "pure" for cleaning expensive equipment.

It's basically ether in a can I would imagine (never done ether so take it as you will) spray it on a rag and feel drunk for 5 minutes. Like I said did it once or twice and chucked it.

Again decent but I'd take nitrous any day of the week, something just isn't right about inhaling solvents.