Tragedy in the Household - An Interview with Dr. Richard Heiss

Dr. Heiss spoke to DrugStory about the “huffing” death of his son, Wade.

“Parents should begin educating their children about the dangers of misusing household products at the same time as they begin teaching them not to play ball in the street.” “On December 23, five years ago, I was Christmas shopping when I received an emergency call from my ex-wife. She said, ‘Richard, come home quick, Wade’s dying.’ I jumped in my car and drove home as fast as I could. I found my 12-year old son lying on the patio. He’d been inhaling air freshener, and he’d collapsed. When the paramedics arrived, we worked on him for an hour and a half, en route to the hospital and at the hospital. He’d suffered a cardiac arrest. When we stopped CPR on my son and I watched the monitor go flat, I was devastated.”Wade had probably been abusing inhalants for six months prior to his death. We were able to piece it together through his stepbrother and his friends. Wade apparently did not know or did not believe that inhalants are harmful, as most kids don’t, because they’re present in everyone’s home in the form of aerosols and other household products.

“As a parent, I had not adequately addressed inhalant abuse education and the fact that street drugs are not the only ones out there. I now believe that parents should begin educating their children about the dangers of misusing household products at the same time as they begin teaching them not to play ball in the street. Children misuse household products because they mistakenly believe that these products are something they can use to get high with no ill effects.

“It’s very rare that a parent will discover that a child is using inhalants or household products to achieve an altered level of consciousness. The biggest sign of a problem is when a child’s behavior changes drastically and his friends and interests change. Because such things normally occur during adolescence, drug abuse may escape parental attention for some time. Once inhalant abuse is discovered, aggressive measures need to be taken to preserve that child’s future. The literature shows that they’ll consistently go back and use unless major actions are taken. And they go on to abuse other drugs and substances.

“Inhalant abuse is not something that’s going to go away. It is prevalent in rural, urban and suburban communities across all socioeconomic lines. Once a practice like this gets entrenched in any society or community, it’s virtually impossible to extinguish it. The best we can do is safeguard our communities through aggressive education of parents and children. We need to take the same approach to drug and inhalant abuse that we do towards sex education. Many of us are old enough to remember how controversial sex ed. was when were in school. There was a lot of parental resistance and denial back then, too. But I believe our society is safer and better informed because of such programs.” -Drugstory.org