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Introduction
Appearance and use
Cost
Purity
Effects
Chances of getting hooked
Risks
Solvents cover a huge number of substances:
Gas lighter refills, aerosols containing hairspray, deodorants
and air fresheners, tins or tubes of glue, some paints, thinners
and correcting fluids, cleaning fluids, surgical spirit, dry-cleaning
fluids and petroleum products
When inhaled, solvents have a similar effect to alcohol. They
make people feel uninhibited, euphoric and dizzy.
ID: Gases, Aerosols, Glue, Thinners, Volatile Substances
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Appearance and use
All sorts of famous household names.
Each contain different substances with different effects.
Solvents are sniffed from a cloth, a sleeve or a plastic bag. Some
users put a plastic bag over their heads and inhale that way. Gas
products can be squirted directly into the back of the throat which
makes it difficult to control the dose.
Most users are between 11 and 16.
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Cost
A couple of £'s will buy a
solvent.
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Purity
Sniffing solvents isn't for anyone
whose body is a temple. There's all sorts of chemical muck
involved. It all
depends on what's being
sniffed.
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Effects
- Users
say it's like being drunk with dizziness, dreaminess and
fits of the giggles. It can be difficult to think
straight.
- The hit is quite short so users tend to keep repeating the dose
to keep the feeling going.
- Depending on what's being inhaled, some users can hallucinate.
This can last for up to 45 minutes.
- It can give users a 'hangover' afterwards, giving them the mother
of all headaches and making them sleepy.
- Depending on the substance, it can give users a red rash around
their mouths
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Chances
of getting hooked
There's no evidence that inhaling solvents can make
a user physically dependent although
a tolerance can build up
within 2-3 days of
continual use. It is possible to
be psychologically dependent.
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Risks
- At best, you risk nausea, vomiting and blackouts.
- At worst, you risk fatal heart problems which have been known to
kill users the very first
time they sniff.
- Squirting gas products down the throat is a particularly dangerous
way of taking the drug.
It can make your throat swell so you can't breathe and make your heart slow
to a
dangerously
low level.
- You risk suffocation if you inhale from a plastic bag over your
head.
- Sniffing can seriously affect your judgement and when you're high,
there's a very
real danger you'll try something reckless.
- Long-term abuse of solvents has been shown to damage the brain,
liver and kidneys.
- It can be hard to get the amount right. Just enough will give the
desired high,
just a little too much can result in coma.
- Solvent abuse killed 64 people in 2000. A quarter of these were
people under
18.
- Using solvents in combination with alcohol can lead to an increased
risk of death.
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For
more information or if you would like to talk to someone
at the Advice Centre, please feel free to phone (01202
262291), email (info@quayadvice.co.uk)
or call in to the Quay Advice Centre (map)
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