Many products which are readily found in the home or the workplace, such as spray paints, markers, glues and cleaning fluids, contain volatile substances that have “mind-altering” properties when they are inhaled.

People do not typically think of these products as drugs because they were never intended for that purpose. However, they are sometimes wrongly used (abused) in this way through their inhalation to give the recipient a ‘high’ or a ‘buzz’.

Although other abused drugs can be inhaled, the term ‘inhalants’ is reserved for the wide variety of substances, including solvents, aerosols, gases and nitrates, that are only self-administered in this way. Although the high produced by inhalants usually lasts just a few minutes, abusers often try to prolong the feeling by continuing to inhale repeatedly over several hours.

The use of inhalants among young people in Malta was brought to tragic public attention recently following the death of a 14-year-old girl who, police believe, had been sniffing lighter fuel when she fainted and died of cardiac arrest soon after. She is the first person in Malta whose death was confirmed to have been caused by sniffing inhalants.

The head of the Government’s rehabilitation agency, Sedqa, says there is a worrying and growing trend among young people using inhalants as a way, it is thought, of escaping personal problems or, more probably, purely as a means of teenage experimentation. It is thought some teenagers start experimenting with inhalants even while in primary school.

The key, as always, lies in using education to get through to adolescents and their parents the potential dangers which inhalants pose to the abuser.

Most abused inhalants depress the central nervous system in a manner akin to the effects of alcohol. Symptoms include slurred speech, lack of coordination, euphoria and dizziness. Abusers may also experience light-headedness, hallucinations and delusions. With repeated inhalations, many users feel less inhibited and less in control. Although not very common, it is thought addiction to inhalants can occur with repeated abuse. Worse, however, inhalants can even be lethal.

Hitherto, the challenge of countering the abuse of inhalants has been handicapped by their easy and cheap availability. Lighter fuel, paint thinners, dry-cleaning fluids, felt-tip marker fluid and hair sprays among other volatile solvents and aerosols in daily use are easily accessible on many shopping shelves, leading teenagers – and their parents – to believe there is nothing wrong in sniffing them.

But this is about to change as the Government is working on a new law which would ban the sale of inhalants to persons under the age of 18. Such a ban has led to a reduction in the mortality rate from inhalant abuse in the United Kingdom.

Will this suffice to deal with the problem? The short answer is No. The banning of sales of alcohol to under 18s has not solved the cases of alcohol abuse in Paceville, for example. And as the head of Sedqa pointed out, alcohol remains the biggest threat to adolescents.

Banning the sale of inhalants to this age group will undoubtedly help. But the battle to prevent teenagers going down the path of experimentation and abuse has to be won in the homes, where parents must be alert to the signs of abuse (marked by changes of behaviour) and able to counsel and deal with it when the first signs are detected.

It must also be fought and won in the classroom, where the extreme dangers of inhalant abuse need to be clearly spelt out.