I received this in my Email
Latest Drug in
Middle School - 'Dusting'


First, I'm going to tell you a little about me and my family. My name is
Jeff. I am a Police Officer for a city which is known nationwide for its
crime rate. We have a lot of gangs and drugs. At one point we were # 2
in the nation in homicides per capita. I also have a police K-9 named Thor.
He was certified in drugs and general duty. He retired at 3 years old because
he was shot in the line of duty. He lives with us now and I still train
with him because he likes it. I always liked the fact that there was no
way to bring drug s into my house. Thor wouldn't allow it. He would tell
on you. The reason I say this is so you understand that I know about drugs.
I have taught in schools about drugs. My wife asks all our kids at least
once a week if they used any drugs.
I like building computers occasionally and started building a new one in
February 2005. I also was working on some of my older computers. They were
full of dust so on one of my trips to the computer store I bought a 3 pack
of DUST OFF Dust Off is a can of compressed air to blow dust off a computer.
A few weeks later when I went to use one of them they were all used. I
talked to my kids and my two sons both said they had used them on their
computer and messing around with them. I yelled at them for wasting the
10 dollars I paid for them.
On February 28 I went back to the computer store. They didn't have the
3 pack which I had bought on sale so I bought a single jumbo can of Dust
Off. I went home and set it down beside my computer.
On March 1st, I left for work at 10 PM. Jus t before midnight my wife went
down and kissed Kyle goodnight. At 5:30 am the next morning Kathy went
downstairs to wake Kyle up for school, before she left for work. He was
propped up in bed with his legs crossed and his head leaning over. She
called to him a few times to get up. He didn't move. He would sometimes
tease her like this and pretend he fell back asleep. He was never easy
to get up. She went in and shook his arm. He fell over. He was pale white and had the straw from the Dust Off can coming out of his
mouth. He had the new can of Dust Off in his hands. Kyle was dead.
I am a police officer and I had never heard of this. My wife is a nurse
and she had never heard of this. We later found out from the coroner, after
the autopsy, that only the propellant from the can of Dust off was in his
system. No other drugs. Kyle had died between midnight and 1 AM.
I found out that using Dust Off is being done mostly by kid's ages 9 through
15. They even have a name for it. It's called dusting. A take off from
the Dust Off name. It gives them a slight high for about 10 seconds. It
makes them dizzy. A boy who lives down the street from us showed Kyle how
to do this about a month before. Kyle showed his best friend. Told him
it was cool and it couldn't hurt you. It's
just compressed air. It
can't hurt you. His best
friend said so.
Kyle was wrong. It's not just compressed air.
It also contains a propellant called R2. It's
a refrigerant like what is used in your refrigerator. It
is a heavy gas. Heavier
than air. When you inhale it, it fills your lungs and keeps the good air,
with oxygen, out. That's why you feel dizzy, buzzed. It decreases the oxygen
to your brain, to your heart. IT
KILLS YOU.
The horrible part about this is there is no warning. There is no level
that kills you. It's not cumulative or an overdose; it can just go randomly,
terribly wrong. IT'S
NOT AN OVERDOSE .
You don't die later. Or not feel good and say I've had too much. You
usually die as you're breathing it in. If not you die within 2 seconds
of finishing 'the hit.' That
's why the straw was still in Kyle's mouth when he died. Why his eyes were
still open. The experts want to call this huffing. The kids don't believe
its huffing. And that's why its more accepted. There is no chemical reaction,
no strong odor. It doesn't follow the huffing signals. Kyle complained a few days before he died of his tongue hurting. It probably
did. The propellant causes frostbite. If I had only known. It's easy to say hey, it's my life and I'll do what I want .
But it isn't. Others are always affected. This has forever changed our
family's life. I have a hole in my heart and soul that can never be fixed.
The pain is so immense
I can't describe it. There's
nowhere to run from it. I cry all the time and I don't ever cry. I do what
I'm supposed to do but I don't really care. My kids are messed up. One
won't talk about it. The other will only sleep in our room at night. And
my wife, I can't even describe how bad she is taking this. I thought we
were safe because of Thor. I thought we were safe because we knew about
drugs and talked to our kids about them.

After Kyle died another story came out. A probation Officer went to the
school system next to ours to speak with a student. While there he found
a student using Dust Off in the bathroom. This student told him about another
student who also had some in his locker. This is a rather affluent school
system. They will tell you they don't have a drug problem there. They don't
even have a dare or plus program there. So rather than tell everyone about
this 'new' way of getting high they found, they hid it. The probation
officer told the media after Kyle's death and they, the school, then admitted
to it. I know that if they would have told the media and I had heard, it
wouldn't have been in my house.

We need to get this out of our homes and school computer labs. Using
Dust Off isn't new and some 'professionals' do know about. Itjust isn't talkedabout much, except by the kids. They all seem to know about it. April 2ndwas 1 month since Kyle died. April 5th would have been his 15th birthday.And every weekday I catch myself sitting on the living room couch at 2:30
in the afternoon and waiting to see him get off the bus.
This Officer is asking for everyone who receives this email to forward
it to everyone in their address book, even Law Enforcement Officers!