Parents could clean a house, cook a meal and go through their morning routine with many of the items students use to get high.

Some parents learned about these items and the symptoms and dangers of inhalant use and other drugs at a community meeting at Century High School Wednesday evening.

"Common household products are cheap and difficult to detect, because there are no tests, and parents assume using (inhalants) is benign," emergency room physician Dr. Gordy Leingang said.

In Bismarck, it is common to see students using aerosol hair spray, products with toluene, air fresheners and compressed air, among others, he said.

Inhalants are used by sniffing the fumes, placing the solvent in a bag or cup and placing it over the mouth - potato chip bags are the most popular - and huffing the fumes on a rag, he said.

Because there is not a medical test to detect inhalants, parents need to watch for signs of their use, Leingang said. These include appearing drunk, unusual odors, stains on clothing, a chronic cough and sniffles, rash or other lesions on the face and behavioral problems. Other symptoms could include headaches, hallucinations and paranoia.

Some people who use inhalants have seizures without an underlying cause, like epilepsy, or go into cardiac arrest, he said. People have died from inhalant use.

Other effects of their use include cognitive defects, damage to the central nervous system, visual defects and blindness.

The chemicals that cause the highs are addictive, he said. It can take two weeks just to detoxify a person who uses inhalants. One in five students will try inhalants, and of those who do, one in five will continue using.

Parents should look for items that could be used for getting high on inhalants, and find out more information on the Internet.

Some students end up choosing a product that can kill them in trying to get high, he said, such as windshield washer fluid, antifreeze and rubbing alcohol.

"A lot of these things are trendy," he said. "We see them for a while. They come and go."

Date rape drugs, while not inhalants, are a trend that is making it harder for people to pursue rape charges.

Leingang said he has seen where gamma hydroxybutyric acid (GHB), rohypnol and ecstacy apparently are slipped into drinks, with people who have come into the ER. But the amnesic quality of these drugs makes it impossible for the people to remember what happened.