FIRST BREATH, LAST BREATH

The young woman who fell to the ground is seizing, her lips a brightening blue. Yet her friends are not reacting. They keep their places in the circle, as though still waiting their turn for a hit of computer cleaner.

"Our minds were like, 'Whoa!' " said Will, a 23-year-old Las Vegan who does not want his last name published. "Our brains couldn't process anything. Then, after about 20 seconds, it was like, 'OK, this is a serious matter.' "

Huffing is what today's teenagers call the inhalation of toxic gases from household items. And it's on the rise. Family and Child Treatment estimates that of its 50 adolescent patients, 15 are huffers, a 50 percent increase in the past year.

"They're using a lot of harsher chemicals than we had 10 years ago," said Metropolitan Police Department narcotics detective Bryon Twigg. "A lot of people are getting ahold of Freon, nitrous from the souped-up racer cars and any spray can."

The list also includes such unusual suspects as correction fluid, permanent markers, nail-polish remover, air freshener, lighter fluid, paint thinner, and hair spray and mousse. By far, however, computer cleaner is the most popular -- popular enough to warrant its own adolescent catchphrase, "getting dusted."

"It's cheap and it's everywhere," Will said. "Wherever's a computer, it's right there -- whereas you'd have to spend a couple of hours looking for something like coke at that age."

A search on the Web site YouTube yields dozens of homemade "dusting" videos. They may or may not be real, but it's hard to believe that most aren't. In one, a young woman appears to suck hard on a can of computer cleaner. She then sings George Michael's "Faith," her voice slightly lowered because the propellant difluorethane is heavier than air.

"Dude, you were retarded for, like, 45 seconds there," a young man's voice cuts through the hysterical laughter.

The Clark County Coroner's Office has recorded two accidental inhalant deaths this year. Last year, there were four. (There was one each in 2004 and 2005, and none in 2002 or 2003.) Twigg said he believes that huffing injuries may number in the hundreds per year.

"If they're injured when it comes to the emergency room, those statistics aren't released to us -- especially when you're dealing with juveniles," he said.

Huffing is an especially resilient problem because most parents are trained to recognize sock-drawer baggies, powdery hand mirrors and bent spoons as the warning signs of substance abuse.

"If they walk into their kid's room and smell computer cleaner, they might say, 'Oh good, you cleaned your computer,' " said Fran Marshall, executive director of Family and Child Treatment, commonly known as FACT.

For instance, the father of one of Will's friends walked into the backyard while the group sprayed paint into a sock (before they switched to computer cleaner).

"I think he thought we were just spraying it to vandalize or something," Will said. "He wasn't thinking that we were huffing it."

According to Clark County Coroner P. Michael Murphy, inhalants cause death in one or more of three ways:

* Weakening the heart so that any slight startle causes irreversible arrhythmia.

* Preventing the intake of oxygen, which causes hypoxia and triggers a heart attack.

* Intoxicating the central nervous system to the point that vital functions, such as breathing, are suppressed.

"And if you start adding other substances into the mixes, legal or illegal, you're really playing Russian roulette with your body," Murphy said. "It's potentially deadly on any try -- whether it's your first or 15th."

Unfortunately, mortality isn't high on the list of worries for teenagers desperate to appear cool in front of their friends.

"We'd do it in school when the teacher would leave the classroom," Will said. "When the teacher came back, everyone would be looking at everyone and it was kind of a joke.

"We all had to be showoffs," he added.

Will said he began huffing at age 15, tripping at least once a week for four years.

"You sit around the house, bored, and think, 'What means of escaping do I have?' " he said, explaining how it started. "And then you start trying stuff."

He described the high as "a way to stop thinking," adding that "you can actually feel the brain cells being destroyed in your head."

By the ninth grade, Will found himself staring at major appliances with longing.

"My friend and I were drinking one night, joking about it, and we decided to take apart his mom's fridge," he remembered.

They broke the unit but couldn't find the elusive Freon.

"Then we figured out that AC units have more anyway," Will said.

According to the National Inhalant Prevention Coalition, one in five eighth-graders in the United States has huffed, a problem caused in part by the perception that household items are less harmful than controlled substances.

"Kids think it's just canned air and they think, 'If it was bad for you, why would they sell it in a store?' " said coalition director Harvey Weiss.

In addition -- although Nevada law criminalizes use or possession of "any drug, chemical, poison or organic solvent to induce euphoria or hallucinations" -- kids know they're not going to be busted for carrying a can of computer cleaner in their backpack. (Twigg admitted that all a suspicious cop "possibly would" do is contact the offender's parents.)

The first nationwide wave of computer-cleaner deaths in 2005 caused Staples and Office Depot to begin requiring ID from customers purchasing any product containing propellant or solvent.

"We will not sell to people less than 18 years of age," said Staples spokeswoman Briana Curran. "We recognized this was an issue and we implemented this policy ourselves."

If a cashier is unaware of the policy, according to Curran, the cash-register screen informs them whenever such a product is scanned.

In addition, Falcon Safety Products added a bittering substance to its Dust-Off that produces an obnoxious smell when intentionally huffed.

"I think it's got to help," Weiss said.

However, the problem persists.

"There are always ways of getting things -- whether it's in the parents' garage, or shoplifting," Twigg said.

Eventually, Will's blue friend stopped shaking and regained both her consciousness and coloring.

"I felt so glad," Will said, "because I was the one that showed her how to huff."

The first words she uttered afterward still stick with Will. In fact, he said they help hew him to the sobriety he has maintained for two years.

"She looked at me," Will remembered, "then she said, 'Here, give it to me again.' "

Contact reporter Corey Levitan at clevitan@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0456.