ABORIGINES STRUGGLE TO KEEP CHILDREN, CULTURE ALIVE FROM GAS SNIFFING

INJARTNAMA, Australia (AP) -- A two-foot lizard sizzles on the coals of a
camp fire, while Elva Cook shelters from the searing midafternoon heat
beneath a shade tree.

It's a harsh environment, but Cook's desert home has become a haven from an
affliction that is killing Aboriginal children and threatening their ancient
culture -- gasoline sniffing to get high.

"They come here when they want somewhere where they can sit down and dry
out. When they come here, they don't sniff," she says.

Gasoline sniffing has occurred periodically in remote Aboriginal communities
in outback Australia for decades. Researchers say the level of abuse
fluctuates greatly, washing over communities like a wave and then
dissipating.

At Hermannsburg, about 11 miles west of Injartnama, the wave is cresting and
is carrying a generation of teen-agers and children as young as 4 into
crime, delirium, brain damage and early death.

There are about 70 sniffers in Hermannsburg, mostly teen-age boys. In a dry
creek bed, they old open-ended soft drink cans containing gasoline over
their nose and mouth, then roam the streets intoxicated, some with the cans
tied around their necks to maintain the high.

Hermannsburg's sniffing outbreak is among the worst of what a draft report
for Northern Territory government says are at least 10 central Australian
communities that have a total of 200 sniffers. Social workers say there are
many more, and the communities affected stretch to the nation's north coast.

"There is currently a crisis of inhalant substance abuse in central
Australia," the report says.

For their high, sniffers pay with brain damage, headaches and
hallucinations, memory loss, malnutrition and epilepsy. Prolonged use leads
to lead poisoning and death. Some sniffers die or are horribly burned in
accidents when gas ignites.

Sniffers are abusive and violent. They commit break-ins and assault family
members and tribal leaders. The effect on their communities is "far beyond
their numbers," the report says.

Aboriginal elders say gas sniffing and other substance abuse threatens to
break the cycle of handing down "dreamtime" stories, dances and paintings
that have kept the world's oldest continuous culture alive for more than
40,000 years.

Maggie Brady, Australia's leading researcher on gas sniffing, likens its use
among Aborigines to drug experimentation by teen-agers in all societies. But
relative poverty and extreme isolation mean street drugs like cocaine are
not available to many indigenous people.

Gasoline sniffing is "the most accessible and efficient substance with which
to achieve a mind-altered state," Brady says. Boredom and rebellion are key
factors.

``Petrol is easy to obtain. It's a very good high. It, from (the sniffer's)
point of view, is a slightly cultish and exciting and risky thing to do.

``They are off the beaten track. There are limited job opportunities. There
are virtually no youth workers; there are often no discos. There is often
just simply nothing else to do.''

Gasoline sniffing has been recorded among other indigenous peoples,
including the Inuit of Canada, the Pueblo, Navaho and Plains Indians of the
United States and the Maoris of New Zealand.

In Australia, it is difficult to measure the problem's extent, or how many
have died. Sniffing is not illegal, and there are few official records until
sniffers show up in crime reports.

One recorded death was that of a 14-year-old chronic sniffer who bled to
death while in withdrawal and having visions of devils. He punched out a
window and sliced his arm to the bone.

Experts say sniffing has been characterized by periodic outbreaks that crop
up, ricochet across the country, then drop off. But Brady, who estimates
there were 63 deaths in the decade ending in 1991, feels sniffing has been
intensifying over the past 30 years.

One sign of the demand is that Aboriginal sniffers pay as much as 50
Australian dollars ($38) for about 2 1/4 pints of gasoline. Many Aborigines
live in areas so remote that the nearest gas station may be 100 miles or
more away and few have cars, so traffickers can charge high prices.

Affecting almost exclusively the most out-of-sight group in Australian
society -- poor black people living in the outback -- sniffing has been
given low priority by state and federal governments. Total government funds
for gas sniffing programs is around $2.1 million a year.

Brady says Canada spends twice as much per capita on fighting substance
abuse among its indigenous peoples.

The Northern Territory government says it supports the work of Aboriginal
outposts like Injartnama, which lies 100 miles west of Alice Springs, but it
provides no training and no long-term back-up.

Cook and her family keep sniffers busy with manual work. Its a simple
theory: keep vivacious teen-agers busy and they will stay out of trouble.

They also try to instill Aboriginal skills being lost in a haze of gas and
alcohol fumes.

"Every afternoon, they go out hunting goannas and witchetty grubs," Cook
says, referring to the local bush food of lizards and moth larvae.

They also go camping and learn to construct shelters and fences.

But Cook despairs for the future.

"The old people are tired now. Our kids are going the wrong way. What's
going to happen when we are gone?" she asks. "All the old stories and
ceremony, they are all gone now. They don't remember."

Peer pressure and boredom remain threats.

In a corral behind Injartnama, two recovering sniffers harness horses in the
late afternoon sun, which turns the desert sand a rich red ochre.

Where will they ride this evening? To the newly discovered waterhole nearby?

One teen looks up with a coy smile, "Hermannsburg maybe," he says.