Dr Leo Schep spoke to a large group of retired University of Otago academics and schoolteachers yesterday about the dangers of huffing, and showed them what to look out for.
"Parents should be the first line of defence for the safety of their children.
"There's a risk that more Dunedin teens are going to be inadvertently killed or seriously hurt by butane if people are not educated about the dangers.
"The rates of death and injury are a national concern."
Dr Schep said 30 deaths were recorded nationwide in 2001 as being caused by sudden sniffing death syndrome (SSDS).
However, Prime Minister John Key recently said there had been 50 deaths in "a reasonably short period of time".
Dr Schep believed parents and grandparents may be able to trim the death toll by watching their children or grandchildren for changes in behaviour, complaints of headaches, dizziness, vomiting, inability to stand, increased breathing, laboured breathing and muscle fatigue.
These things could lead to coma, seizures, cardiac issues or death, he said.
"The most common way for them to die is by heart failure, typically caused by getting a fright, which causes an increased flow of adrenaline.
"Their hearts can't cope with it.
"Death could occur on the first, 10th or 100th time a person abuses inhalants.
"It's a ticking time bomb.
"A lot of people get away with it. Others don't, but the statistics are still unacceptably high."
Dr Schep said the majority of calls to the National Poisons Centre asking for help for someone who had become ill from inhaling a substance related to 11 to 15-year-olds, followed by 16 to 20-year-olds.
Even calls concerning 5 to 10-year-olds had been recorded, he said.
Of the calls received by the centre between 2003 and 2012, 166 related to propellant abuse, 60 to petroleum, 21 to "other gases", 12 to glue, nine to chlorinated substances and six to nitrates.
Simply keeping an eye out for discarded spray cans or canisters around the home could make a difference, he said.
"They are easy to obtain, inexpensive, simple to hide and an easy way to get high.
"That's the scary thing about it."
