# Presentation: 132539

## PHARMACOLOGICQUAGMIRE

- BY
- CHARLES SHARP, PhD

**Notes:**
most heterogeneous of druggie fields: common, variant & ubiquitous
 nitrites in US, gases distinctly different from the solvents; Gasoline, remote Indian villag

## DEFINING AN INHALANT 

- Odor
- Perfume, gasoline
- Nitrous oxide or other gas
- Preferential Odor?
- Friendly persuasion
- Intoxication
- Based on Chemical properties?
- Based on Animal studies?

## Desired Product 
Product uninformative; “nontoxic” solvents unlisted 
Components – paint pigments, prefer gold
Fluorocarbons replaced by butane, propane  
Solvent, propellant or main component
Affective Amount		
Drugs versus “solvents” 	
Youth, teen, adult - use different quantities 	
Fads or dependent producing inhalant
Helium
“Trans-go”, not transmission fluid
Drinking “Lysol” for alcohol (methanol) .. aerosol? 

- Product uninformative; “nontoxic” solvents unlisted
- Components – paint pigments, prefer gold
- Fluorocarbons replaced by butane, propane
- Solvent, propellant or main component
- Affective Amount
- Drugs versus “solvents”
- Youth, teen, adult - use different quantities
- Fads or dependent producing inhalant
- Helium
- “Trans-go”, not transmission fluid
- Drinking “Lysol” for alcohol (methanol) .. aerosol?

## CONSEQUENCES

- Quantity any time that produces serious hazards
- Frequency, quantity –that defines an “addict”
- How long or intense each episode
- Quick drunk, short lived
- Leads to hospitalization
- Seldom
- renal - distal acidosis

## CONSEQUENCES

- Death most common problem
- Medical Examiners; few deaths in DAWN
- Solvents/gases very ethereal, not found at autopsy
- Not in urine, blood, or lungs
- England – 100/year but dropping
- US >100/year in newspapers

## DISEASE MODALITIES

- Neurologic problems
- Cognitive ability limited with brief exposures
- Hearing Loss  -- toluene, trichloroethylene
- Brain damage after many high exposures
- Usually non-reversible encephalopathy
- Severe only in a limited number
- Toluene or butane
- Peripheral  neuropathy
- Hexane-type   -- not? toluene
- Nitrous oxide

## PRODUCT INTERPRETATION

- Formulation important
- Not list solvents, propellants
- List as inert ingredients
- Change in formulation, active component
- 	Fully halogenated (“freons”), now partial hydrogenation
- “Pure” products
- With only desired agent; “dust-off” type
- Lighter fluids

## COMMON PRODUCTS 

- Nitrous oxide
- In whipped cream dispensers
- In Dental offices
- In tanks taken to parties, hippie-type, sold by the “ballon”
- Gasolines
- Less lead now
- Higher benzene
- New additives

## STUDY PROBLEMS

- Can only study low level of some ‘nontoxic’ solvents/gases in humans
- Is this level suitable to understand CNS circuitry involved
- Flow-through, well-controlled animal chambers not readily available
- Administration of Mixtures
- Body levels differ due to variable volatility of different chemicals

**Notes:**
low amount of hexane in product (vs toluene) becomes greater % in body)

## WHERE DO WE GO?

- Better understanding of use patterns
- Distinguish characteristics of what kids seek in their inhalants
- More appropriate animal models to correlate with human issues
- Clarification of mechanisms of dependence and toxicity

## TOXICITIES

- HUMANS
- Freon-22 in factory: dizzy, respiratory
- Butane cardiopulmonary resuscitation
- Ethyl chloride (head cleaner)-not walk
- Thinner(toluene) death, accident?
- Mothball (naphthlene) prior to anesthesia
- Hepatitis (TCE)

## TOXICITIES

- ANIMAL
- Guinea Pig less ototoxic
- Rat sciatic nerve, myelin loss, toluene
- GABA systems
- Gap-junctions, ion channels
- C-Fos, toluene induced in brain