ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / June 11, 2013) – Inhalant abuse continues unabated in Zamboanga City in southern Philippines where many street children are dangerously hooked or addicted to the illegal and toxic adhesive substance more popularly known as rugby.
One elderly woman was secretly photographed selling rugby in small portions for as low as P20 – to teenagers and street children, and even adults – at a market area just outside the local police headquarters. And the illegal trade goes on everyday.
Juvenile delinquents sniffed their rugby in public without fear of arrest. And the public cares less whether these children get high or stoned or end up robbing market goers to sustain their addiction.
Abode
The little corner where the woman sells her rugby also serves as her abode – a concrete street post is where she takes her quick bath and a gallon of water is all she needed.
Her small family, whose members sell anything from fish to used clothing, also use the same spot to rest or sleep, and as a mini-den to rugby-sniffing children and all these things happened in front of small children and their mother.
One young woman watches over her baby as the others sniff rugby right on the roadside. She also bathes in the same concrete street post and hangs her clothes on a road sign as the elder woman does.
But despite this glaring violation of the law, inhalant abuse is not only rampant among street children, but also one of many social problems in Zamboanga.
Toxic
The effects of rugby to human health are far from heaven – a usual feeling of those who gets high from sniffing the glue – and can cause death. Rugby contains a chemical called toluene, a toxic ingredient in solvents, paints, and other household products.
Inhaling high levels of toluene can cause death or unconsciousness and repeatedly breathing this chemical over long periods of time can cause death, permanent brain damage, or depression. Exposure to high levels of toluene may affect kidneys, nervous system, liver, brain, and heart.
Poverty
And street children in Zamboanga who are addicted to rugby do not even know its dangers to their health because of the lack of government education or campaign against substance abuse.
And this is aggravated by the failure of their family and society as well, to protect them from such abuse, but many of them blamed poverty and bad influence for their addiction and miseries in life.
“It makes me feel good when I am high. I don’t feel hungry, I don’t thirst and I don’t care about other people. I have my own world and this is because of rugby,” said a twelve-year old boy, who claims to start sniffing glue several years ago.
Others said they wanted to reform and return to school, but poverty prevents them from getting back to their former selves. (Mindanao Examiner)
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