Inhalants (Gases, Glues and Aerosols)

• What are inhalants?
• Street Names
• How are they taken?
• What are the effects?
• What are the dangers?
• Are they addictive?

What are inhalants?

• Inhalants are a chemically diverse group of psychoactive substances composed of organic solvents and volatile substances commonly found in more than 1,000 common household products.
  
• They are also referred to as "sniffing drugs," "snorting drugs," or "huffing drugs."

Back to top

Street Names

"Rush," "Locker room," "Bolt," "Climax"
Back to top

How are they taken?

• Substances are inhaled. The substances enter the brain so rapidly that the intensity resembles the effects produced by intravenous injection of other psychoactive drugs.
  
• Inhalants can be sniffed directly from an open container.
  
• They can be "huffed" from a rag soaked in the substance and held to the face.
  
• An open container or soaked rag can be placed in a bag where vapors concentrate before being inhaled.

Back to top

What are the effects?

• Inhalant intoxication resembles alcohol inebriation.
  
• Stimulation and loss of inhibition followed by depression.
  
• Distortion in perceptions of time and space.
  
• Headache.
  
• Nausea or vomiting.
  
• Slurred speech.
  
• Loss of motor coordination.
  
• Wheezing.
  
• "Glue sniffer's rash" around the nose and mouth.

Back to top

What are the dangers?

• Sudden Sniffing Death Syndrome: You can die, the first or hundredth time you use inhalants.
  
• Heart failure.
  
• Suffocation by displacing oxygen in the lungs and then in the central nervous system, causing breathing to cease.
  
• Brain damage to the cerebral cortex that results in personality changes and learning disabilities.
  
• Long-term health problems include:
  • Hearing loss.
    
  • Brain and central nervous system damage.
    
  • Bone marrow damage.
    
  • Liver and kidney damage.
    
  • Blood oxygen depletion.

Back to top

Are they addictive?

Heavy or sustained use of inhalants can cause tolerance and physical withdrawal symptoms within several hours to a few days after use. Withdrawal symptoms may include sweating, rapid pulse, hand tremors, insomnia, nausea, vomiting, physical agitation, anxiety, hallucinations, and grand mal seizures (characterized by loss of consciousness, falling down, loss of bowel or bladder control, and rhythmic convulsions).

Last reviewed October 2012
Back to top