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 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 some-
times 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 pro-
pellant 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. 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. IT'S 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 breath-
ing 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 u p. 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 stu-
dent. 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 mo nth 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 can't 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 Enforce-
ment Officers.