Glue sniffing appears to be an alarming new trend amongst many Ho Chi Minh City youth looking for a cheap high.

The glues are sold in stores around the city ranging from VND2,000-17,000 (US$0.12-1) depending on the tubes’ weight, according to S., a self-proclaimed addict in the city’s Tan Binh District.

S. said his glue-sniffing group had more than 100 members, most in their teens. He said one VND2,000 tube could be inhaled over 30 minutes while a tube costing around VND6,000-7,000 could be sniffed over an hour or more.

One morning early this week, reporters witnessed a group of six adolescents, including both males and females, sniffing glue out of bags in an Internet shop in Tan Phu District.

Outside the shop, tens of glue tubes were scattered on the ground.

Fifteen-year-old T. said they were just sniffing glue, not drugs.

Th., a girl in the group, said the cheap glue could produce feelings of euphoria and was less costly than other drugs.

T. said the group had been sniffing glue for months after being taught how to do it by older peers.

Local store owners said they regularly sold glue to many adolescents – sometimes tens of tubes at a time.

One store owner on Au Co Street, who wished to be unnamed, said that since 2006 he had discovered several teens purchasing glue to get high and had informed local police.

A vendor on Huynh Van Chinh Street said a group of about 10 youngsters gathers daily in a yard in font of the Huynh Van Chinh apartment block to sniff glue.

Many local residents had approached the group to warn them of the dangers, the vendor said, but received threats of attack from the group members.

A retired state worker living in the block said that in 2006, there were just a few glue sniffers in the area but now the number had risen to hundreds.

A police officer in the district said the local police department was aware of the dangers of glue sniffing. He said tests showed the glues contained harmful chemicals which affected the nervous system in similar ways to other street drugs.

But according to the officer, law enforcement is powerless to stop the practice as glue is not classified as an illegal “drug.”

Toxic effects

Reporters brought two types of glues – reportedly the most popular amongst teens – to the Hai Dang Joint-Stock Company which performs laboratory tests on substances to analyze their chemical make-up.

Test results showed that one of the glue brands contained at least three toxic substances including methylene choloride, ethyl acetate and toluene. The other brand contained the same substances as well as cyclohexane.

Professor Chu Pham Ngoc Son, technical consultant for the company, said each of the toxic chemicals were capable of producing euphoric feelings but that no research had been done on the effects of the combined substances.

Nguyen Huu Duc from the Ho Chi Minh City University of Medicine and Pharmaceuticals said glue sniffing can become highly addictive.

In addition to the short-term pleasurable feelings these chemicals induce, glue fumes can also cause drowsiness, fatigue, dizziness, depression, delusion, insanity, and even unconsciousness and death following a high level of exposure.

Duc added that Vietnam hasn’t got any statistics on glue sniffing yet.

Source: Tuoi Tre