THOUSANDS of children are risking their lives sniffing glue and aerosols in a new epidemic of solvent abuse in schools.

Research on the drug habits of young teenagers has found that while use of cannabis and class A drugs has risen slightly over seven years, the numbers sniffing glue has shot up from 28,000 to 168,000 last year.

The Institute for Public Policy Research also found that the number aged 11 to 15 years using stimulants, such as amyl nitrate, has doubled from 3 per cent to 6 per cent, or 144,000 children, in the same period.

“Volatile substance abuse” or VSA kills at least one young person a week in the UK — 23 per cent of those deaths showed no evidence of any previous use.

Butane lighter refills are responsible for more than half the lives lost.

There are now more deaths from VSA among 10 to 16-year-olds than all illegal drugs put together, yet recent anti-drug campaigns have not touched on solvents, focusing instead on the dangers of Ecstasy and other hard drugs.

Glue sniffing was the scourge of the 1980s but the numbers fell from one in two children experimenting to just one in 17 in the early 1990s after campaigns highlighted the risks. Supermarkets and DIY stores helped by refusing to sell large tins of glue to youngsters.

However, campaigners say that the huge number of new products, including hundreds more aerosols and sprays to clean computers and keyboards, mean that there are many more cheap hallucin- ogenic substances available.

According to Solve It, the only national charity dedicated solely to tackling solvent abuse, the average home contains about 50 products that could be abused.

Julia Margo, a senior research fellow at the institute, said that the thousands of children who risk their lives by sniffing glue had been forgotten. “This is a real hidden tragedy. All the focus has been on cannabis and cocaine and trying to turn children away from hard drugs. But children will use whatever they can get their hands on,” she said.

“Glue and solvents are not illegal and while parents have become much smarter at looking for the signs of their children using illegal drugs, they are less clear what look for with glue.” Volatile substances are powerful hallucinogenics. A young person can get high in 15-30 seconds, putting them at risk very quickly.

“Volatile substances can be accessed any time, any place. If a young person is stopped by police and their school bag is searched the substances — deodorant or hairspray or marker pens, can look completely innocent,” Barbara Skinner, the founder and chief executive of Solve It, said.

“I sincerely believe that banning young people from buying these substances will not work. Their parents would still buy them and what parent doesn’t want their child to use deodorant? “The only answer is education and, in particular, telling people that even one occasion can kill,” she said.

Because solvent abuse is no longer in the news, campaigners believe that the police, teachers and parents no longer recognise evidence of abuse.

The debris from other drug taking, such as needles or cigarette papers, stand out and trigger a response from the authorities, but old aerosols and marker pens are usually mistaken for rubbish.” Mrs Skinner said that people needed to wake up and take notice of what was going on around them.

“When people see evidence of other drug taking they tell someone. But we have forgotten about volatile substance abuse, so no one thinks to look closely at aerosols to see if there are teeth marks or nozzles missing. We have to become more vigilant. More than 2,000 young people have died in the past 30 years due to VSA. If any other drug taking had caused so many deaths we’d be beating down the door of government.”

SOLVENT GROWTH

In the 11- to 15-year-old age group, the proportion using stimulants has doubled to 144,000 over the past decade

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