'Dusting' - US teenagers' use of dust cleaner to get high - is spreading
Abuse of chemical-laced compressed-air product, easily bought in shops, can cause brain damage and is implicated in crash that killed girl, five
With one blast from her can of chemical-laced compressed air, the girl was in wonderland, a short-lived but utterly addictive hallucinatory state.
It was a quick and easy high, and it couldn't have been cheaper: She was swiping the cans of computer dust cleaner from a convenience store. But by the time the US schoolgirl's four-month binge was over, her life had been irreparably altered.
"I have some brain damage from it," said the girl, 17, now living in a recovery home at the Rosecrance drug treatment centre in Rockford, in the Midwestern state of Illinois. "My memory is very skewed. I really have to think a lot more. I'm a bright kid. I know that. I get good grades and work really hard, but I can tell the difference."
The wages of "dusting" can be severe indeed, and they're not confined to the user.
In the most recent of a string of cases bringing the dusting craze to prominence, police have charged Carly Rousso, 18, of Highland Park, Illinois, with being under the influence of "an intoxicating compound" last week when she allegedly drove her car onto a pavement and fatally struck five-year-old Jaclyn Santos-Sacramento. Investigators are looking into whether that compound was the same kind of compressed air thousands of teenagers are using to get high.
Charged with just a minor offence, Rousso is not in custody. But the investigation continues, and authorities have said they may seek more serious charges in the case as they wait for the results of toxicology tests. Her first court appearance is scheduled for Friday.
While the overall use of chemical inhalants has held steady in recent years, experts have noticed worrying mini-trends. More girls are picking up the habit, they say, and more users are gravitating towards computer dust cleaners.