page_title: Inhalant
section_title: Music and musical culture
hierarchical_section_title: Inhalant / In popular culture / Music and musical culture
caption_attribution_description: English: Gutter punks. Decatur Street, New Orleans, Louisiana, May 2002.Gutterpunks
context_page_description: Inhalants are a broad range of household and industrial chemicals whose volatile vapors or pressurized gases can be concentrated and breathed in via the nose or mouth to produce intoxication, in a manner not intended by the manufacturer. They are inhaled at room temperature through volatilization or from a pressurized container, and do not include drugs that are sniffed after burning or heating. For example, amyl nitrite, nitrous oxide and toluene – a solvent widely used in contact cement, permanent markers, and certain types of glue – are considered inhalants, but smoking tobacco, cannabis, and crack are not, even though these drugs are inhaled as smoke.
  While a small number of inhalants are prescribed by medical professionals and used for medical purposes, as in the case of inhaled anesthetics and nitrous oxide, this article focuses on inhalant use of household and industrial propellants, glues, fuels and other products in a manner not intended by the manufacturer, to produce intoxication or other psychoactive effects. These products are used as recreational drugs for their intoxicating effect.
context_section_description: One of the early musical references to inhalant use occurs in the 1974 Elton John song "The Bitch Is Back", in the line "I get high in the evening sniffing pots of glue." Inhalant use, especially glue sniffing, is widely associated with the late-1970s punk youth subculture in the UK and North America. Raymond Cochrane and Douglas Carroll claim that when glue sniffing became widespread in the late 1970s, it was "adopted by punks because public [negative] perceptions of sniffing fitted in with their self-image" as rebels against societal values. While punks at first used inhalants "experimentally and as a cheap high, adult disgust and hostility [to the practice] encouraged punks to use glue sniffing as a way of shocking society." As well, using inhalants was a way of expressing their anti-corporatist DIY (do it yourself) credo; by using inexpensive household products as inhalants, punks did not have to purchase industrially manufactured liquor or beer.
  One history of the punk subculture argues that "substance abuse was often referred to in the music and did become synonymous with the genre, glue sniffing especially" because the youths' "faith in the future had died and that the youth just didn't care anymore" due to the "awareness of the threat of nuclear war and a pervasive sense of doom." In a BBC interview with a person who was a punk in the late 1970s, they said that "there was a real fear of imminent nuclear war—people were sniffing glue knowing that it could kill them, but they didn't care because they believed that very soon everybody would be dead anyway."
  A number of 1970s punk rock and 1980s hardcore punk songs refer to inhalant use. The Ramones, an influential early US punk band, referred to inhalant use in several of their songs. The song "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue" describes adolescent boredom, and the song "Carbona not Glue" states, "My brain is stuck from shooting glue." An influential punk fanzine about the subculture and music took its name (Sniffin' Glue) from the Ramones song. The 1980s punk band The Dead Milkmen wrote a song, "Life is Shit" from their album Beelzebubba, about two friends hallucinating after sniffing glue. Punk-band-turned-hip-hop group the Beastie Boys penned a song "Hold it Now – Hit It", which includes the line "cause I'm beer drinkin, breath stinkin, sniffing glue." Pop punk band Sum 41 wrote a song, "Fat Lip", which refers to a character who does not "make sense from all the gas you be huffing..." The song Lança-perfume, written and performed by Brazilian popstar Rita Lee, became a national hit in 1980. The song is about chloroethane and its widespread recreational sale and use during the rise of Brazil's carnivals.
  Inhalants are referred to by bands from other genres, including several grunge bands—an early 1990s genre that was influenced by punk rock. The 1990s grunge band Nirvana, which was influenced by punk music, penned a song, "Dumb", in which Kurt Cobain sings "my heart is broke / But I have some glue/help me inhale / And mend it with you". L7, an all-female grunge band, penned a song titled "Scrap" about a skinhead who inhales spray-paint fumes until his mind "starts to gel". Also in the 1990s, the Britpop band Suede had a UK hit with their song "Animal Nitrate" whose title is a thinly veiled reference to amyl nitrite. The Beck song "Fume" from his "Fresh Meat and Old Slabs" release is about inhaling nitrous oxide. Another Beck song, "Cold Ass Fashion", contains the line "O.G. – Original Gluesniffer!" Primus's 1998 song "Lacquer Head" is about adolescents who use inhalants to get high. Hip hop performer Eminem wrote a song, "Bad Meets Evil", which refers to breathing "... ether in three lethal amounts." The Brian Jonestown Massacre, a retro-rock band from the 1990s, has a song "Hyperventilation", which is about sniffing model-airplane cement. Frank Zappa's song "Teenage Wind" from 1981 has a reference to glue sniffing: "Nothing left to do but get out the 'ol glue; Parents, parents; Sniff it good now..."
caption: The punk subculture, in which members may live in squats or on the street has been associated with "glue sniffing" since its inception.
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