Background: Whereas much attention has been focused on adolescent risk behaviors such as substance use, much less has been devoted to self-injury in the general adolescent population. Purpose: This study had two purposes: (1) describe the prevalence of self-injury among early adolescents in the general middle school population, and (2) identify…

This article describes an activity that can be performed with an inexpensive plastic toy popper. The activity builds skill at analysing motion and results in the calculation of a surprisingly extreme acceleration. (Contains 1 figure.)

Inhalant abuse, or "huffing," is disturbingly common among children and adolescents. This article outlines some alarming facts about this form of drug abuse, which often begins at an early age. (Author)

Drug use among American Indian (AI) youth continues at higher levels than those found among other youth. While the rates are higher, the patterns of increases and decreases over the past 30-year period have been similar, indicating that AI youth are part of the larger adolescent culture. There is a set of secular influences that affect the rates…

Substance use is a leading cause of preventable morbidity and mortality, and is in large part why people in the U.S. have the highest probability among industrialized nations of dying by age 50. Substance use deserves our sustained attention. It is also an important determinant of many social ills including child and spouse abuse, violence more…

A form of substance abuse occurs when youngsters sniff the ingredients in consumer and household products to become high. The article describes the average sniffer, what is sniffed, the extent of the problem, and suggestions for prevention. (MT)

The percentage of youth inhaling volatile substances is on the rise in the United States. Professional literature has been critical of the helping professions for not doing enough to address this problem adequately. This article attempts to heighten the awareness of the mental health profession by defining inhalant abuse, its consequences, and…

Despite the fact that inhalant use is a growing problem among youth in the United States, relatively little attention has been paid to the demographic and social factors related to its use. This study used data from a household survey of adolescents in Washington state, and found that race/ethnicity was a strong predictor of lifetime prevalence of…

This article questions whether inhalants should continue to be excluded from school-based drug education curricula in Australia. It argues that rationales provided for such a policy in Victoria are, in the main, not supported by recent research. The Australian evidence-base about drug education makes it difficult to predict the outcomes of…

Background: Research finds a strong association between substance use and risky sexual behavior but more needs to be known about this relationship. Few studies have examined this relationship among rural sixth- to eighth-grade students. As such, the purposes of this study were to provide a descriptive profile of rural sixth- to eighth-grade…

Monitoring the Future (MTF) is a long-term study of American adolescents, college students, and adults through age 50. It has been conducted annually by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research since its inception in 1975. It is supported under a series of investigator-initiated, competing research grants from the National…

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) asks respondents aged 12 or older questions related to their use of inhalants during their lifetime and in the past year. This report focuses on youths aged 12 to 17 who initiated the use of inhalants in the 12 months prior to the survey. All findings presented in this report are annual averages…

Although many parents are appropriately concerned about illicit drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, and LSD, they often ignore the dangers posed to their children from common household products such as glues, nail polish remover, lighter fluid, spray paints, deodorant and hair sprays, canned whipped cream, and cleaning fluids. Many young people…

Objective: To examine the prevalence and trend of inhalant use among Indiana public school students. Methods: The Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drug Use among Indiana Children and Adolescents surveys conducted annually between 1991 and 2004 were reanalyzed using 2-way moving average, Poisson regression, and ANOVA tests. Results: The prevalence had…

Sociologists have observed that young people increasingly draw on global as well as local images in their constructions of individual selfhood. This article provides a narrative analysis of stories of inhalant use-induced hallucination, drawn from interviews conducted with young people in Melbourne, Australia. Young people's stories of the…