'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
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.
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. I know Kyle is in heaven but I cant help but wonder If I died and
went to Hell.
This Officer is asking for everyone who receives this email to forward
it to everyone in their address book, even Law Enforcement Officers.
