Campaign to target solvent abuse

A campaign was launched yesterday to help parents save their children from solvent abuse, an action that kills more teenagers than heroin.

The Health Education Authority is placing advertisements in magazines and broadcasting the message in local radio features.

While volatile substance abuse has declined since the 1980s, solvents still claim more teenage lives than high-profile drugs such as ecstasy and heroin, said the authority.

A recent study at St George's Hospital medical school in south London showed that there were 385 deaths from volatile substance abuse in England between 1990-94.

Between 1990 and 1994 there were 32 VSA deaths in the north of England, 56 in the North West, 57 in Yorkshire and Humberside, 30 in the East Midlands, 44 in the West Midlands, 16 in East Anglia, 116 in the South East and 34 in the South West