Fatal DUI Crash Caused by Man Huffing Legal Chemical
In what has turned out to be a landmark DUI case, deputies in Orange County, Florida, finally made an arrest last week in a deadly DUI crash that happened near the University of Central Florida in October 2006, according to a news report in Central Florida News TV’s Web site.
Investigators now say 20-year-old Malcolm Barnes was huffing a legal chemical before the fatal crash. Barnes is charged with DUI manslaughter and vehicular homicide. This is the first DUI manslaughter case connected with huffing.
When Barnes crashed his vehicle head-on into a motorcycle, killing the rider, officials said they thought he had been driving under the influence of alcohol. Detectives knew Barnes was high when he went the wrong way down Alafaya Trail and threw 19-year-old Andrew Brannon off his motorcycle and dragged him to his death in October.
So as part of their investigation, they drew blood and sent it off to a lab. When officials received the results of the test, they did not coincide with how the suspect was acting the night of the crash. Officials said they went back to take a closer look at Barnes’ vehicle and found canisters of 3M Dust remover. That led investigators to believe that this could be a huffing case.
Huffing is the intentional inhalation of a chemical substance in order to get high. Officials say it’s a disturbing trend on the rise, especially among teenagers and young people. Most huffing substances can easily be found in homes. The dust remover, for example, is a product most people with computers own. And while these substances can easily be bought in a store for their intended use, they are still dangerous and treated as illegal substances when abused.
Those who inhale these substances risk losing their lives the first time they attempt huffing. Or as in the case of Oct. 6, they could put someone else’s life in jeopardy. Those who inhale these substances could also be arrested for driving under the influence of a substance – be it legal or illegal.
According to the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), about 1.1 million children huffed household products in 2005. Almost five percent of girls between the ages of 12 and 17 used inhalants to get high in 2005, an increase from 4.1 percent in 2002, while boys remained fairly constant with 4.2 percent reporting use in 2005.
Together, the data show that an estimated 1.1 million adolescents used inhalants in even though huffing these common household substances can be fatal. Inhalants are common household products such as shoe polish, glue, aerosol air fresheners, hair sprays, nail polish, paint solvents, degreasers, gasoline or lighter fluids.
More data and tips on how to talk to adolescents about this growing problem is available on the agency’s Web site at www.oas.samhsa.gov.
