Otago-Southland coroner David Crerar has found James Paul Cessford (19) died on April 1, 2009 from the side-effects of "huffing", or inhaling, butane.
His family says Mr Cessford's death should be a warning to everyone.
"James (Jimmy) didn't fit those stereotypes and that should be a warning to everyone. He was a good, loving and loveable kid. He had a great job as a trapper at Macraes Doc reserve, that he absolutely loved.
"He had a zest for life that was inspiring and that there were 500 people at his funeral evidenced how much he touched other people."
But Mr Cessford was a risk taker.
"He was the kid that would ride his bike off a sheer drop, who gave his parents (and grandparents) conniptions regularly because he was fearless. That both made him in one way, and was also his Achilles heel in another."
Solvent sniffing to get high was akin to playing Russian roulette, Mr Thomson said.
"We lost a great kid because he didn't think about the risks. You don't have to be a solvent addict to lose the gamble. You just have to play the odds and you can lose any time.
"If James' death and the fact that the circumstances of it are public are to have any positive purpose then I hope it might be that someone else doesn't take that risk."
Specialist forensic pathologist Dr Martin Sage told the recent inquest butane was readily available and the most commonly abused volatile inhalant in New Zealand, and its use carried a significant risk of inadvertent death.
Mr Cessford's body was found five days after his death by the occupants of a property next door to the Cessfords' home. The body was in the neighbour's yard.
Details of how Mr Cessford might have arrived there were suppressed.
The coroner's findings, released earlier this month, said that in the early evening on the day Mr Cessford died he had been socialising with his brother and other friends in his brother's sleepout in the garage at the Cessford family home.
Their parents were both away at the time.
Police said Mr Cessford left his friends, went to his bedroom inside the house and inhaled the butane. Cannisters were later found in his room.
He was seen in his bed alive a few minutes after he left the garage.
Mr Cessford was reported missing by his brother, Robert, and friend Sam McKinney the next day.
Mr Crerar said Mr Thomson had raised issues during the inquest in relation to matters of police practice relating to interviews and the presentation of evidence.
Mr Thomson said yesterday he could not discuss his concerns about the police interviewing process without going into details of suppressed matters, but the family had received an apology from the police with respect to the particular matter that had "incensed" them and were unlikely to take the matter any further.
With regard to the matter of evidence, it still concerned him that people involved in inquests were not entitled to the same disclosure of evidence from the police, that people involved in a criminal matter were entitled to.
"That does mean that if you're representing the family interest, you may not have access to all the information you need."
Mr Crerar said it was acknowledged that there was always a dilemma when there was an investigation by the police into a sudden death. There was often tension between the police's obligations under the Coroners Act and their parallel obligation to investigate a crime.
"The death of James Cessford continues such tension."
