National Inhalant and Poisons Awareness Week on March, 2025: I have to make a 30 second Public Service Announcement(PSA) on inhalant abuse. Any ideas?

National Inhalant and Poisons Awareness Week 2025. Inhalants & Poisons Week Participate in National Inhalants and Poisons Awareness Week

Bless you for choosing to educate others about the dangers of "huffing" (fumes or chemical vapors). How about talking about how the permanent neurological (or other) damage can affect a person's daily functioning and saying something like, "Jo Smo has an incredible amount of difficulty processing (understanding) what others are saying to her, she has limb spasms and has difficulty even washing her hair, she has trouble walking in a straight line due to damage to her cerebellum (part of the brain that controls balance and coordination including speech muscle coordination) and slurs her words too" or something to that effect.

It's important for your audience to know that inhalant use may not 'just' kill but it may also mame the person and cause severe, permanent injury, and it can happen the very first time that the person tries inhales fumes. The chemicals used for inhalants are literally poisons and were never meant to go through our systems. Wishing you the best of luck, and I'm sure that you will save others' lives and the quality of their lives.

For more general information:

Edit: I just got a brainstorm by reading the other message about suggesting to show grieving parents. The mother of a 16-year-old male named Ricky Stem, Jr., tragically, died from inhalant use back in 1996 and Diane, Ricky's mom, had taken part during National Inhalants and Poisons Awareness Week a few years ago (and most likely since then). At the demonstration (was in the newspaper) she'd had products typically used for huffing such as a tube of glue and instead of the name of the product, she wrote "Brain Eraser" or on an aerosol spray-can wrote "Lung Freezer" or such. It was really brilliant albeit so tragic for her and all of the family that her son left behind.

What causes a person to want to sniff gas? What is it like? Side effects? Any images of the brain?

Huffing is the deliberate inhalation of a gas or solvent such as with your relative who sniffs gasoline. It can be physically addictive and there are rehab programs for those with an inhalant addiction (though not as abundant as general drug rehab programs).

A friend actually has a traumatic brain injury (tbi) and other permanent damage including to her bone marrow (fatty inner lining of the bones that cushions joints and makes new blood cells) from huffing at age 12, now in her 30's. It can also cause hearing loss and other damage to vital organs such as the heart, liver and kidneys, and it generally appeals to the younger generation due to it being cheap and providing a quick high though one can become permanently disabled or even die after 'just' one time! There is actually a week in March that is dedicated to providing awareness and education in the prevention of using inhalants and the dangers of other poisons.

For more information on the dangers of inhalant use -- National Inhalant Prevention Coalition: and here is a link found in the last NIPC newsletter (can sign up for newsletter at nipc's site) that provides a listing of treatment programs for those with inhalant addiction:

And someone mentioned Al-anon meetings for the family and friends of the addict which is a great idea to try to get support from others in a similar situation. They are 12 step meetings modeled after AA (alcoholics anonymous) but not the same organization. Al-Anon is mainly for families of alcoholics but one can go to an 'open' meeting if their family member has a drug problem or other type of addiction. Nar-anon is for the families and friends of the drug addict which is similar to alanon but is a different organization. For Nar-anon: