Alice Springs has recently been hit by an outbreak of glue-sniffing, with between 12 and 20 kids from the town-camps falling victim to the practice. Local hardware shops, hit by break-ins and theft of inhalants, have responded by reinforcing fibro walls with steel to increase their security.

Tangentyere Council’s Central Australian Youth Link Up Service (CAYLUS) has been brilliantly successful in bringing the scourge of petrol-sniffing to its knees, reducing the number of sniffers in its region from 500 to 20. BP’s non-sniffable Opal fuel has been a key to this improvement, however experts stress that this victory cannot be sustained without the provision of well-planned youth diversionary activities on bush communities. But now CAYLUS has a new foe to fight.

While glue-sniffing isn’t as titillatingly exotic at petrol sniffing, it kills twice as many people each year in Australia. Crikey spoke at length on Friday to CAYLUS Co-ordinator Blair McFarland about the problems of substance abuse in the desert.

McFarland says that the specialty hardware shops are generally very responsible in their retailing of sniffable products. He points out that in the Northern Territory it is a criminal offence to sell inhalants if the retailer has a reasonable suspicion that they will be abused.

One of the largest supermarket retailers in Alice Springs – let’s just refer to them as “Coles” – could be of great assistance by simply moving the offending products to a position where they are less susceptible to shoplifting. CAYLUS have written to Coles about the issue and are eagerly awaiting a response. Rival Woolies is less problematic because it’s embedded in a larger shopping complex which is staffed by security guards.

At this time of year its forty degrees every day in Central Australia. There is no school and no football to hold the kids’ interest. The male community elders who contribute to good order are drawn away from settlements to preside over men’s business ceremonies which are conducted in the bush over summer. It’s a danger time for bored kids, both in town and in the bush. For some, the temptation to sniff petrol or glue is never far away.

Blair McFarland says that the continued availability of Opal must be underpinned by planned activities for the kids, particularly during the summer holidays. The expense of these programs is dwarfed by the enormous cost to the taxpayer of the long-term treatment of brain-damaged sniffers.

“The void must be filled or the sniffing will return” says McFarland. “If the intervention is about making children safe then youth programs are the best way to do it.”