Buzzing on Blast-Away

A screen at Police Services showed a Geo Prizm pull up to the gate at Richardson Towers on Nov. 1 at 10:26 a.m.

"A dispatcher saw him just sitting there and sitting there, and that's what drew attention," said campus police Deputy Director Derek Myers. "And after a while, he just crashed on through the gate."

When a campus police officer arrived four minutes later, he found the vehicle parked illegally. The driver, 18-year-old Andrew Overall, was slumped over and unconscious in the front seat of the still-running car with his foot on the brake pedal.

In the seat next to him was a half-empty aerosol can of Maxell Blast-Away - the stuff most people use to blow the crumbs out of keyboards - and a plastic bag.

A witness at the scene said that Overall was "huffin'" the can until he passed out.

After regaining consciousness, Overall was taken to the Regional Medical Center at Memphis to have blood drawn after a Memphis DUI officer performed a field sobriety test.

Giving the car a closer look, officers found another 10 ounce can of Blast-Away, a "green leafy substance," stems and seeds in the ashtray.

They also found his parking lot access card. He had had it all along.

"He had his card on his person," Myers said. "But in the state of mind he was in, he wasn't able to figure out how (to open the gate)."

According to a witness at Richardson Towers, Overall was huffing an aerosol can in the dormitory lobby at about 8:00 a.m. that same morning.

"He was in front of the elevators huffing, then he started shaking, then he hit the floor," said a witness who wished to remain anonymous. "Then, while he was lying on the floor, he did it (huffed from the can) again. He was outside the elevator initially, and then he got in the elevator and passed out."

The elevator went up and then back down, and when the doors opened, he was still lying on the floor, passed out, the witness said.

A desk worker at Richardson called the police, and when they arrived with paramedics, Overall had regained consciousness.

"He was coherent at the time," the witness said. "The police and everybody did a report. They talked to him about the dangers of huffing and everything, and then released him.

"I guess there was nothing illegal about the can," the witness said.

According to the witness, Overall left the building immediately after being released and didn't return until the crash, more than an hour later.

Campus police were unable to confirm if Overall did in fact pass out in Richardson Towers, but police did charge Overall with DUI vandalism, public intoxication and possession of a controlled substance after he drove through the Richardson Towers gate.

The driver might not think so, but it could have turned out much worse.

Products such as Blast-Away and Dust-Off have been blamed for deaths all over the country. In Sacramento, Calif. in 2004, three teenagers died when the Jeep they were driving left the road and crashed into a concrete wall.

A can of Dust-Off was found in the wreckage, and the only passenger who was tested had difluoroethane, an ingredient found in Dust-Off, in his blood.

In Brooklyn, N.Y., a woman was killed when a driver who had been huffing Dust-Off crossed the double yellow lines and hit her head-on.

According to The Alliance for Consumer Education, it is difficult to determine the number of deaths from inhalant abuse because the cause of death is often listed as a side effect of use - such as suffocation or cardiac arrest - rather than inhalant use.

But according to a report from the Department of Health and Human Services, "inhalant abusers risk an array of devastating medical consequences."

Inhalant abusers risk death from a variety of causes including asphyxiation, suffocation, coma, choking and convulsions.

The long-term use of inhalants can cause brain degeneration similar to patients with multiple sclerosis, as well as damage to other organs including the heart, lungs, liver and kidneys.

The dangers of inhalants are nearly universally acknowledged by the scientific and medical community. Even the Web site erowid.com, a drug information site, which in one example offers tips on how to "safely" shoot heroin and use other drugs, warns users against inhalant use.

On an erowid.com page, an inhalant abuser describes the experience of huffing Dust-Off. A disclaimer was added by the site administration which read: "Our understanding of the literature is that there is no such thing as safe use of volatile solvents, aerosols and other street inhalants: their psychoactive effects are inseparable from nerve and organ damage. We have chosen to include these reports to help document the real world use of inhalants, but their inclusion is not intended to imply that they are anything but dangerous."

Despite the well-known dangers of inhalant abuse, their ready availability and seemingly innocuous nature make their abuse popular, especially among adolescents and young adults.

A 2006 study by The University of Michigan reported that 9.1 percent of eighth graders and 4.5 percent of high-school seniors admitted to abusing inhalants in the last year.

The majority of those surveyed were aware of the dangers of long-term inhalant abuse, but less thought that occasional use was dangerous.

Sixty-two percent of eighth graders surveyed said there was a "great risk" to using inhalants regularly, but only 35.8 percent replied "great risk" if the use was "only once or twice."

According to Satish Kedia, director of the Institute for Substance Abuse Treatment Evaluation at The U of M, the feeling of intoxication that inhalants create tempts people to ignore the risks.

"I think in terms of short term effect, without taking alcohol, they can get the alcohol feeling," Kedia said. "And they love that."