Petrol sniffing continues to kill Aborigines
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Petrol sniffing played a part in the deaths of up to 60 Aborigines in Australia’s outback Northern Territory in the past seven years, a coroner was told on Tuesday as an inquest began into three of the deaths.
Outback health workers say there has been a dramatic increase in the number of Aborigines sniffing petrol since the last inquest in 1998, as black outback communities struggle to combat the habit in the face of poverty, disease and abuse.
There are an estimated 500 petrol sniffers in the Northern Territory, double the number four years ago, while in South Australia state the number has doubled in two years to 222, said health worker Blair McFarland.
“It’s just a general sign of decay of the (aboriginal) communities,” McFarland told Reuters by telephone on Tuesday from the outback town of Alice Springs.
“If you were in a remote community, had no education, no potential for work, lived a culturally shattered life, and had an option of getting out of it every day with a free drug, wouldn’t that make you vulnerable to becoming a petrol sniffer?”
Petrol sniffing gives the user a high which is a cross between alcohol and LSD, said McFarland from the Central Australian Youth Link Up Service (CAYLUS).
“You have visual and audio hallucinations, as well as a reduction in feeling, so you don’t feel scared or hungry or cold,” he said.
Often petrol sniffers tie small cans of petrol around their faces, like a chaff bag around a horse’s head, others simply lie in the dirt under a blanket with a can of petrol.
HUNDREDS RISK DEATH
McFarland said a case the coroner was examining in Alice Springs, that of an aboriginal boy who died after sniffing petrol for the first time, showed how lethal the habit can be.
In late 2004, the 14-year-old visiting the Willowra community, 300 km (190 miles) north of Alice Springs, found a bottle of petrol and began sniffing for the first time.
He passed out and, unable to lift his head from the bottle, died of asphyxiation.
The other two cases being examined involved men aged 21 and 37 who both died of asphyxiation after sniffing petrol and collapsing at the base of Uluru, formerly known as Ayers Rock.
“The fact that you can asphyxiate first time you try means any petrol sniffer can drop dead any time. There are hundreds, potentially, of people who could drop dead any minute from petrol sniffing,” McFarland said.
Dr. Terry Sinton told the coroner he had performed autopsies on up to 60 Aborigines in the past seven years where petrol sniffing was a factor in the deaths, local media reported.
But the death toll is just the tip of the iceberg, said McFarland. “Brain damage is the bigger long-term problem. It dissolves the brain. It dissolves the fat in the brain.”
Health researchers say it costs A$250,000 ($190,000) a year to supply full-time care to a brain-damaged petrol sniffer.
“Brain-injured sniffers in wheelchairs are a common sight in Mutitjulu,” Deputy Coroner Helen Roberts told the inquest. “Many sniffers continue to sniff despite their disabilities.”
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