ABORIGINE YOUTH BESET BY ADDICTION TO GAS SNIFFING

INJARTNAMA, Australia -- A two-foot lizard sizzles on the coals of a
campfire, while Elva Cook takes shelter beneath a shade tree from the
searing midafternoon heat.

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 said.

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, 11 miles west of Injartnama, the wave is cresting and is
carrying a generation of teenagers and children as young as 4 into crime,
delirium, brain damage and early death.

There are about 70 sniffers in Hermannsburg, mostly teenage boys. In a dry
creek bed, they hold 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,'' according to the report.

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 said.

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 teenagers 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 said. 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,''
she said.

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.

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 said 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. It's a simple
theory: Keep vivacious teens 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
said, 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 asked. ``All the old stories and
ceremony, they are all gone now. They don't remember.''