Lança-perfume (Resistoleros, Carnival, inhalants, and why your airplane glue stinks)

Inhalants are ubiquitous illegal drugs of abuse and a public health problem worldwide. Most lipophilic solvents have some kind of neurotoxicity (some gas anaesthetics, in fact, work based mainly on their lipophilicity, and are only special because of lower toxicity). Unavoidably, we find these in glue and, memorably, spray paint. As far as I know, in the States, you have to be 18 just about anywhere to buy spray paint (because of graffiti, as well as inhalant abuse) and solvent-based glues (because of inhalant abuse).

One thing you'll probably cover if you ever take a business ethics class is the case of HB Fuller, a Minnesota-based glue manufacturer that attracted some flak for a glue sold in Latin America called Resistol. When industry finally realized that, yes, glue was a potential drug of abuse, Testors (another glue manufacturer) added oil of mustard, which contains the noxious allyl isothiocyanate (not so noxious in low doses, as in mustard and wasabi). Fuller held off - for a time, the product was sufficiently notorious that solvent abusers in Guatemala were known as resistoleros. They insisted that oil of mustard was too dangerous for their workers, but they eventually discontinued (only retail) sales of the glue in a few countries. I'm not sure what the status of Resistol is these days.

One unusual inhalant drug is lança-perfume. The (illegal) mixture is mostly found in Brazil - it's a mixture of ether and chloroform (sometimes other solvents), with fragrance added. This is the only inhalant mixture I know that's sold as an inhalant - most of the time people do solvent arbitrage with things like glue and paint (hence the "illegal to use except as labeled" warnings). Like inhalants everywhere, it's a public health and legal problem. A colleague who spent some time in Brazil told me that you see it a lot during Carnival, where it's squirted on fabric and inhaled. Quicker (and much more dangerous) than alcohol.