It kills brain cells, it lowers IQ,
it makes you into a zombie.
Inhalants are toxic things
that people use to get a quick high.
There are more than a thousand
household products
that people use as inhalants to get high.
Most commonly used in the US
are shoe polish, glue...
-- Poppers.
-- Gasoline.
-- Lacquer thinner.
-- Lighter fluid, nitrous oxide.
Other paint solvents and Dust-Off.
Poppers and whippits, which you can pick up at
a club or a concert,
contain really poisonous chemicals that can
permanently damage your body and brain.
In the long run it can hurt your body. It can cause
damage to your intestinal tract and stuff like that,
that cuts off the oxygen to your brain --
it kills your brain cells.
It even says on the labels,
"Do not inhale, you could die from inhaling this."
On the labels of Dust-Off:
It causes heart attacks, causes this and that.
And it's not like heroin or like meth
or any of those drugs, where it will --
eventually you'll gain a tolerance for it and you'll
just be addicted and you'll just be trapped by it,
and you just keep doing it until you die.
If you did it enough, you just die.
A lot of kids die with it
still in their mouth,
'cause you just don't know
when it's too much.
I did the whippits,
I did air-freshener cans.
-- Dust-Off for computer equipment and stuff.
-- Spray paint in a paper bag.
Inhale it through a shirt, because you don't
want the Freon to get into your throat.
The whipped cream -- you just push the top part and
inhale the air when the whipped cream comes out.
People put it in a balloon. You inhale it, exhale
and re-inhale it through the balloon.
Or you could just like huff it
straight out of a can or whatever it came in.
I'd have to say I was probably 13.
-- I think I was 14 or 15.
-- I was 15.
My friends and I were sitting behind
a dollar store.
I just showed up, 'cause I knew that was
a hang-out spot --
we would go there and drink
or smoke marijuana.
And they were all sitting around in a circle
just inhaling butane -- lighter fluid.
I was like, "What are you guys doing?"
"We're inhaling, it's kind of new --
I don't know. It's cool."
Someone just discovered it, I guess, through
somebody else, and then brought it up.
Honestly, we had nothing else to do.
I went to a rave with one of my friends and there
was a guy sitting there on his car with a tank.
He pretty much asked me if I wanted some, so I said,
"Sure." He filled up a balloon and gave it to me.
He called it "Devil in a can."
He said, "It'll blow your mind."
And it did. It was bad.
After I did it the first time, it only took maybe
2--3 days before I started doing it again.
When I first started doing it,
it was like really exciting,
so I spent another hour or two just going
through all the different cans in the house.
What's so addicting about it is you feel the rush
instantly. It just hits you immediately.
After I inhaled the whole balloon, I couldn't hear
a thing. All I heard was {\i1}who-who-who{\i0} in my head.
People were talking to me,
but I couldn't make out a single word.
I'd want to do it right away again, 'cause the
high would go away so fast.
For 20 seconds you have a false happiness.
So you want to get right back into it.
The whole goal is to be high, so you just do it --
you want it right away again.
-- I wanted to do it again.
-- So you have to keep doing it over
and over and over again.
I was doing it every single day.
I was addicted to it, for sure.
-- I passed out.
-- Me and my friends passed out a lot.
Been passed out for quite a while,
like a few minutes -- 5 minutes.
I passed out in my house a few times.
... pass out -- I was just in bed. I'd pass out and
I'd wake up, and every 10 minutes or every hour...
And as soon as I'd wake up,
I'd search for it and I'd do it again.
And I would do it to the point where I would
pass out every single time, on purpose.
When you pass out, you wake up
and you don't remember what happened.
You have no sense of thought,
so you're tripping over things and...
always ending up hurt somehow -- falling.
Shortness of breath -- like, it would
make my chest hurt after a while.
When you're coming down off of it, you get
a foamy mouth and everything tastes weird.
I'd get sick when I came down off a high.
My stomach would hurt and I'd have
a headache -- feel really light-headed.
I couldn't even see. I would just focus on
the ringing, 'cause your head will start ringing.
It's not like you could read a sign
or go get a glass of water.
It's just like, you had to sit down
and just wait for it to stop.
I almost had a paranoia, confusion.
And, depending on how much you do,
get really nauseous.
I just felt completely, completely dead -- like I
knew I didn't have any brain cells left.
It's probably the worst migraine
you could ever have in your entire life,
where it feels like your brain is bleeding
because it's hurting so bad.
It was like, that's it.
Until it's over, you're just a vegetable.
So it was kind of like a never-ending cycle
to where you'd be...
Never ends.
It was me and 3 other friends,
and we were huffing in the car.
And the driver was huffing too.
She had just taken a hit and...
she drove into a tree.
And none of us were wearing any seat belts.
I had a friend end up in the hospital from it,
'cause she just didn't wake up.
I was bored, I did it once and I did it again.
I did it a third time and then I passed out.
The next thing I remember, I'm running down
the street barefoot and just a pair of shorts on --
no idea where I was going.
Somehow I made it to my friend's house
and he drove me back to my car.
There were cops there -- and I had hit a tree,
a huge tree, messed up my car.
I was stupid enough to ruin
a $10,000 piece of machinery
just for 2 minutes of being high.
I inhaled a bunch of Dust-Off
and then got in the shower and...
I knocked myself out, fell over,
hit my head on the bathtub spout.
And then I woke up,
and stupidly enough did it again:
inhaled it, got back in the shower
and fell over again.
You know, I was bloody and --
it was just stupid.
I inhaled it and I fell backwards,
hit my head on the concrete and was out.
And then woke up,
and the back of my head was bleeding.
There was blood all over my back
and my shirt and all over the place.
And my friends were all like,
"Whoa, that was awesome."
They thought it was cool. I thought it was like,
"Wow, I'm cool now, 'cause I'm bleeding."
"And my friends are giving me approval
because I'm bleeding and in pain." Good friends.
I've heard from many other friends who --
one was inhaling Freon
and he took two hits and then...
That was it.
And now he's dead.
I do have trouble breathing,
I can't run upstairs.
If I do, I'm on the verge of passing out
because I'm out of breath.
I still have memory problems with it, because it
severely messed up my memory.
I can't remember faces like I used to,
I don't have clear images anymore.
I'm learning at a slower rate
than I was two years ago.
It really, it does affect the way --
your ability to learn.
It's really hard to see it at the time.
You don't realize the toll it's taking on your body.
I had no idea that it would cause
this much pain and suffering
and trauma on myself.
It really messes you up.
They're irreversible to the body.
Just based on the fact that so many people
die from it, I would say don't do it.
Because it's not worth losing your life over.
You know, a 30-second high
from a 5-dollar can of compressed air
is just not worth all the trouble
that it causes.
It would have been nice to know a lot more.
I wouldn't have done what I did.
Basically not worth it.
I've seen people die.
I've almost died myself a couple of times,
and just for that quick euphoria.
There are so many better things in life.
It's all fun and games,
but it's really dangerous --
kids dying from it
with the can still in their hand.
It's -- there's no point to it.
It's really dangerous.
It's probably more severe than some of
the most dangerous street drugs out there.
I mean, all you're doing,
in the time you're doing drugs,
you're destroying your life, you're destroying
your body, you're destroying your soul.
But during the time you think everything is fine.
But that's completely false and fake and not true.
