[NPInfo] Dust Off-Must read

[David Mittman]

Snopes says 100% true story.


'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 drugs 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. Just 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 kids 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 it's 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. It just  
isn't talked about much, except by the kids. They all seem to know  
about it. April 2nd was 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!

This can be verified on the following website


http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/dustoff.asp