Youth Connections Coaltion is including a new target in its efforts to curb drug use among young people in the community — inhalants.

It’s one of the issues the group identified when applying for the new Drug Free Communities Grant it recently received to the tune of $125,000 annually for the next five years.

“This means five more years we are able to do really great work in our community,” said Drenda Carlson, Youth Connections Coalitions director.

Every other year, the state Department of Health and Human Services conducts a survey known as the Montana Prevention Survey, which asks eight-graders and high-school sophomores and seniors questions about their behaviors.

The survey given this year and used in the grant proposal shows that inhalant use in Lewis and Clark County is higher than the statewide average at all three grade levels.

In Lewis and Clark County, 18.5 percent of the 501 eighth-grade students who responded admitted using inhalants at least once in their life, compared to 14.8 percent statewide.

For the 281 sophomores who responded, the results were 16.6 percent in the county and 14.4 percent across the state; 13.3 percent of the 259 county high-school seniors who responded admitted using inhalants, compared to 11.9 percent statewide.

Inhalant use among county eighth-graders decreased since 2004 and increased for sophomores and seniors.

Statewide, the DPHHS survey showed that 4 percent of the students who used inhalants had done so in the previous 30 days.

Health officials say that inhalant use is rising nationwide.

Inhalant use includes sniffing glue and breathing the contents of aerosol spray, and inhaling other gases or sprays in order to get high.

Chad Lawrence, a school resource officer at Helena Middle School, said he’s seen an increase in the kind of behavior and comments that often surround inhalant use, but he doesn’t have any hard evidence to back it up.

“There haven’t been a lot of arrests to show a true increase,” he said.

There also haven’t been many emergency room visits attached to inhalant use.

Peggy Stebbins, St. Peter’s Hospital spokesperson, said that in the past year the hospital has seen only been two potential cases.

As the survey illustrated, though, the lack of arrests and hospital visits doesn’t mean there’s no use.

Carlson said she hopes the efforts of Youth Connections in the coming years will prevent more inhalant use locally.

By comparision, Montana teenagers rank the highest in the nation for underage binge drinking, and the rate for Helena teens is among the worst in the state. According the the same survey, 48 percent of local high-school students reported binge drinking in the past 40 days. Alcohol threatens the health and well-being of youth on a national and local level. Nationwide, it kills more teens than all other illegal drugs combined.

Youth Connection’s plan is to work diligently with the community to change norms around all substances, while continually assessing and analyzing data, Carlson said.

Now in its sixth year, Youth Connections is a coalition of parents, students, teachers and community organizations that started working on way to support teenagers in resisting engaging in risky behaviors.

Not only is the group looking to expand its work of reducing substance abuse to include the East Helena community, it also plans to use a range of community-level strategies to address widespread abuse of substances, inhalant use and tobacco-related hospital emergencies.

“We want to bring more partners to the table,” she said. “They then will be more successful in facilitating change in our community.”

One of the ways to combat inhalant use is increasing awareness of the issue among businesses the sell the products young people are using, like Axe, a brand of male grooming products, or Dust Off (compressed air).

“We want to work with our business community that sells these products so see their part — so they can be a possible prevention tool,” Carlson said.

Gerald LaChere, DARE officer with the Helena Police Department, said it will also be critical to increase awareness of parents because the products are often available in homes.

“It’s something that is accessible to all kids,” he said.

LaChere says inhalants are used in many ways, from applying the substance on clothes in a place where it can be sniffed throughout the day or by putting some product in a bag and wrapping it around the face.

Some immediate symptoms include slurred speech and odd odors from the mouth. Long term effects are weight loss, muscle weakness, depression and lack of coordination, LaChere said.

Torey Keltner, Helena High School resource officer, noted that using inhalants to alter a person’s mental or physical state violates state law.

“It’s something we are combating regularly,” Keltner said.

Unlike controlled substances, the products used as inhalants usually aren’t illegal.

The most popular products are spray paint and Dust Off, LaChere said.

“There’s no question it’s a growing problem here,” LaChere said. “But proving it is hard.”

Helena was among 199 communities across the nation awarded the Drug Free Communities grants, which totaled $24.4 million in federal dollars.

In addition, the coalition was awarded a $50,000 STOP Act Grant to address Helena’s high rate of underage drinking.

This allows work to continue around changing attitudes toward the acceptance of underage drinking by engaging schools, community and Carroll College.

“Youth Connections is a community-wide comprehensive approach and we’ve shown progress or we wouldn’t have been considered (to receive the funds),” Joe Furshong, the school district’s student services administrator said. “We qualified for this money because we are successful.”

Reporter Alana Listoe: 447-4081 or alana.listoe@helenair.com