NT Community Groups are Blaming Aerosol Death on Government Funding Cuts

This week a 12-year-old boy from Alice Springs in Central Australia is believed to have died after sniffing two cans of deodorant. For the past year and a half, the remote town of Alice Springs has been battling a rise in deodorant sniffing—it's addictive, potentially lethal, and kids as young as 10 are hooked. To make matters worse, there's an acute lack of funding to tackle the problem.

Following the death of the boy Labour MP Warren Snowdon spoke to media, blaming the cut to social services in the Northern Territory as a factor in the boy's death. In early 2014, the Northern Territory government cut funding to the Youth Street Outreach Service and Aboriginal Congress's Youth Service, which ran night patrols and a drop-in centre in Alice Springs. These services would pick up at-risk youths and take them to places to sober up. It also allowed trained youth and social workers to identify issues early on in the community. But now without the preventative monitoring of night patrols, it's left to the emergency services to bear the brunt – often leaving it all too little too late.

Blair McFarland, manager of CAYLUS (Central Australian Youth Link Up Service) in Alice Springs also attributes the rise of children and young teens sniffing deodorant to the funding cuts. McFarland told VICE , the majority of deodorant sniffers are aged between 10 and 14 and pick up the habit out of boredom. His organisation last year retrieved about 400 empty deodorant cans from the centre of Alice Springs. "There are very few recreational alternatives," he says. "There's a percentage of kids who face difficulties in their lives and want to escape that, and there's a percentage who are hungry and cold—if you sniff, you don't feel that. All of these factors push people towards being vulnerable to inhalant abuse."

Sniffing deodorant, or many other inhalants results in feelings of "euphoria" and "disinhibition" according to Australian Government information . But the high is short lived and users have to repeatedly use more to maintain the same effect. Sniffing poses numerous major health risks including sudden death, kidney and liver damage, irregular heart rhythms and brain damage, especially to consistent, long-term users. Mcfarland likened the inhalant's role in "dissolving the brain" to engine de-greaser.

Preventative measures have already been put into place: stores in Alice Springs last year began keeping aerosol deodorant cans locked up behind counters. The Northern Territory's Volatile Substance Abuse Prevention Act also allows retailers to refuse sales to youths who appear at risk, though the government is currently working on a clearer set of guidelines on how to deal with the issue. Preventative action is no doubt key to tackling the problem, but if there are no services (like the night patrols or youth centers) to find those already suffering from the addiction, further fatalities remain a real possibility.

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