There have been a couple of car accidents here in the Phoenix where supposedly the teenage drivers were inhaling fumes or “huffing” to get dizzy or high or whatever feel you get when you huff.
The media seems to have gone bezerko trying to implant the idea into peoples heads that the next car you see could/probably may be driven by a huff crazed teenager, and that it’s better to just stay home rather than get run down by the next huffer that crosses your path. Except if you stay home the huff crazed teenager may just decide to drive through your living room, instead of into that Ford Escort they were previously intent on bifurcating.
Is this a peculiar Phoenix based media craze? Or is the media throughout our great land working together on this one? Just wondering.
No, it goes in cycles. This is just the “hot topic of the week” for the media. In another week or two, you won’t hear anything about it for couple of years or so. It doesn’t mean it has stopped, not by a long shot. My wife works in emergency medicine, this is a continual issue.
The last ime this was hot topic was probably about five years or so ago. The uproar resulted in all of the stores that sell paint having to install special lockers for the spraypaint, so that you have to ask a saleperson to get it for you. The end result is that it had no effect at all on the abusers, the stores are out a ton of money for the lockers and the increased labor, and folks who want to paint something are inconvenienced.
Geez, I thought it was gonna be a thread on the dangers of beginning flute players driving.
I seem to remember that, here in the DC area, huffing was the big horror story about 5-6 years ago. The panic then was that a couple of kids had lit (actually tried to light) a cigarette after huffing in a car. Of course, they blew themselves up. Stupidity is its own reward as they say.
Heck, around here, the material doesn’t even change. In order of preference: gold spraypaint, silver spraypaint, any other metallic spraypaint, any other spraypaint, anything else.
My wife loves it when some kid with gold flecks around his mouth and nose tries to deny that he huffs paint.
“” Is this a peculiar Phoenix based media craze? Or is the media throughout our great land working together on this one? Just wondering. “”
I think its just Pheonix for the time being.. I am a bit surprised though, that they havent redredged this one in my area. IF theres something that Wasteland Colorado (Grand Junction) has going for it… its that we are the Huffing capitol, the Dyslexia capitol, and we send more bad students home on test days (but score artificialy high on national tests).
The demographics of huffing seems to change according to place, time, and substance. I can’t speak to the entire subject, of course, but what I have seen includes: Japan of '91, students and certain aerosols unknown to me; ongoing in Minneapolis -but not widespread- among the poor and the use of metallic spray paints (crack and now crystal have eclipsed this practice, but not entirely); the use of “poppers” (that family of inhalants beginning with amyl nitrite) now reportedly growing in popularity among heterosexual youth during dances, the use of which has been more associated with the gay community until lately. A young fellow I know, “straight as an arrow”, mentioned a liking for 'em in passing recently (knowing my own history of wild experimentation in my own day, no doubt he counted on a lack of hysteria about it on my part), and I still have yet to sit him down and question him about this. Nitrous oxide-propelled canisters of whipped cream, especially among local students: what’s baking ain’t Aunt Dora’s recipe for pie, I can tell you. The latest discarded cannister I saw was on a local bridge after this year’s 4th of July fireworks display. Huffing gasoline? I’ll lay odds that that’s still going on, especially among preteens when and if it is.
Alarmed? Good.
The physical and mental paybacks for this kind of thing is potentially very high. There’s enough statistical info out there that I don’t feel the need to repeat here. Weed’s got no contest to that, IMO.
The last (and only) time I actually saw somebody inhale fumes, I was working in a factory in St. Louis. This guy just sprayed some of this stuff we used to dissolve plastic into the can’s cap and started inhaling like you might when you smell baking bread! " MMM he said, hey you wanna try?" Obviously this guy wasn’t into his job.
Know, I work with laquers, solvents and such. Frankly, the sooner I can get out of the room after using them, the better. I’ve rather developed a fondness for the brain cells I’ve got left.
Jeff
