In April and May last year, Aaron Draper was charged with misdemeanor intoxication by inhalation of a toxic substance eight times.
In July, Draper got busted outside a Boise Walmart, surrounded by 42 cans of compressed air he stole so he could inhale the contents and get high.
After that July arrest for felony burglary, Draper told the Idaho Statesman, he was working hard to get clean and planned to enter rehab at the Veterans Administration as soon as he got out of jail. The Statesman chronicled his battle with huffing in its Dec. 29 editions.
But on Tuesday, Boise police arrested Draper outside a store on Franklin Road after watching him huff the contents of a spray can, according to reports. Police also arrested him on Sunday, outside a store on Overland Road, after they said they saw him doing the same thing.
Draper also was arrested on Jan. 22 and Feb. 5 in Ada County on the same charges, according to court records.
That makes 12 arrests for huffing in less than a year. Draper bonded out of the jail Tuesday and was unavailable for comment.
The 28-year-old told the Statesman in December he was introduced to huffing compressed air while serving in Iraq in 2005 and has been unable to stop.
Huffing is a practice in which people breathe in the propellants found in household spray cans to get high.
The buzz occurs when oxygen is denied to the brain. Effects can include lung damage and poisoning by the chemical propellants, which can even lead to fatal conditions like heart arrhythmia in rare cases.
Draper pleaded guilty to a charge of petit theft in the July burglary case, and agreed to go into rehab as soon as he left jail.
Draper is a Washington native who came to Boise to go to the VA for treatment.
“If I do this again,” Draper told the Statesman in December, “it’s probably going to end up killing me.”
Patrick Orr: 377-6219
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