[grandmatoall]

> Please read... I am not one to pass things along but if this is true it
> needs to be known.
>
>
> 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
> 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 le ast 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 betw een 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. Tha t'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 st
> rong 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 be cause 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 2 nd 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!
>
>
> Detective Sergeant Ryan M. Balseiro
> #2042
> Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office District I, Property Crimes
> Section
> District I, Community Resource Deputies
> District I, Community Service Officers
> Office (813)247-0626rbalseir@hcso.
> tampa.fl. us
>
>