Capping a Community Problem: Partnerships for Preventing Refrigerant Huffing

About the Program

Category: Health (Best in Category)

Year: 2012

Programs that counties have put in place to combat the use of drugs among teens can only go so far. Often, many teenagers are abusing household substances as mind-altering drugs. Huffing refrigerant from A/C units has led to tragic deaths among the teenaged population. Chesterfield County and SAFE Inc., a local 501(c)(3) substance abuse prevention coalition, developed an innovative partnership with companies from the HVAC sector to reduce access to refrigerant through the installation of locking caps on A/C unit valves. The initiative is built on a recent change to the Virginia Building Code that mandates locking caps on all new installations to prevent unauthorized access beginning March 1, 2011. The initiative focuses on retrofitting existing units with locking caps and has proven to be a great success for the county.