'Dusting'
First, I'm going to tell you a little about me and my family. I am a Police
Officer for a city which is known nationwide for it's 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. Makes them promise they won't.
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 no.
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. Kyle was right. It can't
hurt you. 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. Roll the dice and if your number comes up you die. ITS NOT
AN OVERDOSE. It's Russian Roulette. 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. As
adults we tend to lump many things together. But it doesn't fit here. 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. It just isn't talked
about much, except by the kids. They all seem to know about it.
