Facts about Huffing

Huffing is a form of substance, wherein users intentionally inhale a chemical substance to achieve an altered mental state.

The four types of huffing agents are: volatile solvents, aerosols, gases, nitrites. These inhalants can damage the liver, kidney, brain and heart.

Do you know friends who huff?

Here are some of the characteristics that will tell you if they do:

• disorientation and slurred speech
• stains of paint on the face, hands or clothing
• stash of empty spray paint or solvent containers and chemical soaked rags or clothing
• strong odor of chemicals in breath or on clothing
• nausea or lose of appetite
• red or runny nose
• sores or rash around the nose or mouth

Once upon a medical time, some huffing agents are first used as medical anesthetics. One good example is nitrous oxide, popularly known as laughing gas. Chloroform and diethyl either also fall under this category.

Because o these substances, psychoactive and hallucinogenic effects at sub-anesthetic levels, they were used recreationally. Sir Humphry Davy, a British chemist and physicist, used to hold nitrous oxide parties for people to enjoy the euphoric properties of the gas. It was then that Davy proposed for the gas to be used in operations, but this was done only half a century later. To date, nitrous oxide is used by dentists to reduce the anxiety of patients during visits..

Sources:

Huffing: The Abuse of Inhalants.www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs07/708/index.htm
What Parents Should Know about Hufing.www.drgreene.com/21_180.htm