CHAPTER 4: Inhalants

The use of inhalants does not seem to be very widespread in the FSM and there are very few references to it in the drug literature on Micronesia.

The practice seems to be more common in Chuuk than in other places, although there is evidence from the present survey that it was also carried on to some extent in Pohnpei. During his 25 years in Chuuk, the author occasionally heard stories of young boys sniffing gas or paint thinner to produce a "high." Marshall (1991:351) writes that "during the summer of 1985, on Moen (Weno), I was told of boys as young as nine or 10 sniffing gasoline." Some of the heaviest users seem to have suffered brain damage as a result of their excesses, if one is believe the stories that are told of them. Not infrequently, one would encounter an elementary school drop-out who exhibited strange or even deviant behavior that was attributed to gas sniffing. Rubinstein (1980:10) tells of a troubled young man in his early twenties who had begun sniffing gasoline before the age of 12 and who might have suffered brain damage as a result.

Glue sniffing is another form of inhalant use seen in Chuuk and Pohnpei. During his fieldwork in Chuuk during the early 1980s, Larson (1987:229) noticed that glue sniffing was becoming more popular among young adolescents in Chuuk. Other expatriates on Pohnpei have made similar remarks. One young Peace Corps teacher in a rural village on Pohnpei noted that Crazy Glue was sold in nearly all the village stores and that he has had to take tubes away from his students at times.

The use of inhalants, although not very widespread, is the first rung on the drug ladder for some Micronesians. Young boys may begin sniffing in their early teens but usually stop well before they reach the age of 20, usually moving on to marijuana smoking and then alcohol. An added cause of concern is the well documented health risks that inhalant abuse poses. These range from lead poisoning to brain damage and possible higher incidence of mental disorders (Marshall et al. 1994:26-28). Despite the dangers they present, the use of inhalants has not received much attention- "in part because the substances that are abused by sniffers are legal, easily obtainable, and normally not viewed as drugs" (Marshall et al. 1994:24).

Inhaling is one of the rare types of drug use that is done outside of social context. Unlike drinking and even smoking marijuana, drugs around which social rituals have developed, the use of inhalants is usually a solitary activity. Young boys will normally go off by themselves, sometimes with one other friend, to sniff gas or glue in some out-of-the-way place where they will not be disturbed by adults. Even if the boy goes with a friend, almost no social interaction at all takes place while the two are sniffing.

Survey Data on Inhalants

The survey data showed inhalant use only on Pohnpei and Chuuk; no indication of use was found on Kosrae or Yap. Even when informants in these two states were asked to double-check the survey forms for inhalant use, they could come up with no instances of gas or glue sniffing.

The survey found only 12 people currently using inhalants, 10 from Chuuk and two from Pohnpei.

The number of those who once used inhalants but have not done so during the year prior to the survey was considerably larger than the number of current users. Nine people from Pohnpei and 72 from Chuuk were reported to have sniffed gas or some other substance at some time in their life.

A caution is in order here. Sniffing may be underreported in this survey, despite the vigilance of the field investigator in insuring that informants carefully record all cases of this in their data sheets, because of the limitations of this type of survey and the atypical nature of this kind of drug use. Sniffing, far more than any other type of drug use in FSM, is a "hidden vice;" boys characteristically sneak off and sniff the substance alone and out of sight of others. This and the fact that it is normally practiced for a limited time, in late childhood or early adolescence, before it is dropped (and often forgotten) make it much more difficult to detect in a key informant survey such as this.

Current Prevalence Rate by Sex and Age

Of the 12 current inhalant users reported in the survey, all but one were males. Hence, the familiar sex-linked pattern of drug use found for alcohol and marijuana, with males using drugs and females generally abstaining, is also seen here. This pattern is confirmed in the survey data on lifetime prevalence that will be presented below.

Use of inhalants is tightly circumscribed with respect to age, with the great majority of the users (83%) falling in the 10-19 age cohort.

Data for Chuuk, the only state recording a significant number of current users, shows a prevalence rate of 2.9% for males aged 10-14, and 1.5% for males aged 15-19. The male prevalence rate for the combined age groups is 2.2%

The figures for inhalant use recorded in this survey are low in comparison with those derived from other drug surveys. In a 1985 survey conducted of 852 students at the 4th to 12th grade levels-that is, between the ages of 10 and 20-in several schools on Weno, Chuuk, 9.9% of the total sample claimed that they had sniffed gas or some other substance at some time in their life (Marshall et al. 1994). Unfortunately, the study offered no breakdown by sex. The results of this survey are similar to one conducted on Saipan of junior and senior high school students in 1987; 9% of those surveyed had used inhalants (Lord 1987). Oneisom (1991) reports that 5% of the 121 persons he interviewed in a convenience sample in Chuuk in 1985 claimed to have tried

sniffing at least once. It should be noted, however, that all of the above studies measured the lifetime prevalence rather than the point prevalence rate of inhalant use.

Lifetime Prevalence Rates

The lifetime prevalence rates recorded in the survey may offer a more accurate measure of the extent of inhalant use in Pohnpei and Chuuk. The lifetime prevalence rates in Pohnpei for males of select age groups run from about 1% to nearly 3%, as Table 4.2 indicates. Those in Chuuk, which are much higher, range between 3% and nearly 9% for males. The lifetime prevalence rate for males, 10 years of age and older, in Pohnpei is 1%, while for Chuuk it is nearly 6%. The figure for Chuuk at least is comparable with other surveys done there during the 1980s.

Frequency of Use

As Table 4.3 shows, inhalants are not used as frequently as alcohol and marijuana. Most current users (73%) sniff one or twice a month or less frequently; only three users, or 27% of the sample, are reported to be sniffing as often as once a week.

Other Observations

Inhalant use would appear to be a real problem in Chuuk alone of all the states. Informants from Kosrae and Yap say that gas sniffing is a rare occurrence in these places. The absence of inhalant data in our survey on these places confirms this contention. Observers on Pohnpei report that in the past use of inhalants was probably greater than it is now. They explain the decrease as due to more pastimes for young boys on the island with the construction of basketball courts and the development of other recreational outlets. There is another, more ominous explanation that some offer for the decrease on Pohnpei-the tendency of boys to use alcohol at an increasingly younger age. The relatively high percentage of Pohnpeian drinkers among the 10-14 and 15-19 age groups noted in this survey would seem to support that explanation.