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Call to extend sniffing fight
Issue 82 - 09 Jun 2005
NORTHERN TERRITORY: Calls are being made to try to turn Central Australia into a petrol sniffing-free zone by further expanding subsidies for a new fuel that can’t be used to get high.
A youth service wants every petrol station in the region - including in Alice Springs - to sell only Opal fuel, a new weapon in the fight against petrol sniffing in remote Aboriginal communities.
The Central Australian Youth Link Up Service (CAYLUS) has called on the federal government to expand its program subsidising the cost of the more expensive fuel to cover the entire region.
Opal, developed by BP, contains no lead and only very low levels of the aromatic hydrocarbons that give sniffers a high.
Petrol sniffing has devastated many remote Aboriginal communities across Central Australia.
More than 100 people have died from sniffing petrol in Australian Indigenous communities since 1981 - 35 of them in Central Australia, CAYLUS spokesman Blair McFarland said.
The Northern Territory Coroner will hold an inquest later this year into three of the deaths.
“There has been vastly less sniffing in the communities that have got Opal,” Mr McFarland said.
“It’s the best chance for stopping sniffing.”
Last month’s federal budget extended the subsidy scheme, currently operating in 37 Indigenous communities, to a further 23 communities across Australia over the next four years.
Mr McFarland said there were seven Central Australian communities signed up to the scheme.
He said it should be expanded to include a further 10 communities, along with Alice Springs petrol stations and road houses.
He said the further roll-out in Central Australia would cost a total of $8 million a year.
“Taxpayers are already paying this amount for full time care for people with brain damage from petrol sniffing, each of whom costs upwards of $300,000 per annum,” he said.
“There are more than 600 Indigenous youth in the target region sniffing at dangerous levels, with more starting every year.”
Mr McFarland said he had written to the federal government with the proposal, and had the support of the local community.
“Although eliminating sniffable fuel does not address the problems that drive young people to this sort of substance abuse, it does provide a window of opportunity for the community to bring in alternative activities,” he said.
A spokeswoman for Health Minister Tony Abbott said the government recently expanded the successful scheme in the budget by $10 million, but would look at any new proposals.
“We will continue to monitor it,” she said. – AAP
 
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