Just after New Year’s Day in Alice Springs, a 12-year-old boy sniffed two cans of deodorant with his friends at well-known sniffing hotspot Billy Goat Hill.
He then walked into town, where he collapsed in front of the local Coles.
After police unsuccessfully tried to resuscitate him, he was pronounced dead in hospital.
The boy, who cannot be named for cultural reasons, was a chronic sniffer known to local health workers who was waiting to enter rehab when he died.
His death has shone a spotlight on the growing problem of deodorant sniffing in Alice Springs.
How deodorant sniffing came to Alice Springs
Central Australian Youth Link Up Service (CAYLUS) spokesman Blair McFarland said deodorant sniffing had become a serious problem in Alice Springs in the past year.
CAYLUS was set up to try to reduce the amount of sniffing in the town.
“We knew that people could sniff deodorant but there wasn’t really any consistent sniffing happening in Alice Springs until one young girl came over from Mount Isa and basically taught the local kids how to sniff,” Mr McFarland said.
Locals said children as young as seven years old had been found sniffing deodorant in the park behind the supermarket or at the town lookout.
Despite the recent spike in deodorant sniffing in Alice Springs, Mr McFarland said it did not come close to the “bad old days” before 2007, when petrol sniffing wrought havoc in Central Australia.
“Opportunity is one of the big factors in drug use,” he said.
“If your drug of choice is in every car and all you need to supply your habit is a bit of hose a metre long, then it’s really tempting.”
The big change came when central Australia moved to non-sniffable fuel.
“We’ve seen a change from 500 people sniffing petrol going down to 100 people sniffing paint,” Mr McFarland said.
“When paint changed and became unsniffable and when we [managed the inhaling of] glue better … the numbers diminished away,” he said.
But it is much more difficult to cut off the supply of deodorant.
CAYLUS estimated there were 20 chronic deodorant sniffers in Alice Springs, mostly aged between 12 and 14, but said thousands of other children were also at risk.
Northern Territory Police Superintendent Travis Wurst said the 12-year-old boy’s death was not surprising given the long history of substance abuse in Central Australia.
“Unfortunately Central Australia has had issues over many, many years with volatile substance abuse, whether that be in this instance the reported deodorant sniffing, we’ve had glue sniffing issues and petrol sniffing issues, so unfortunately it doesn’t surprise me,” he said.
Death ‘could have been prevented’
Across the road from where the 12-year-old boy collapsed, there used to be a late-night drop-in centre run by the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress.
Its funding was cut in late 2012, just six months after the Country Liberal Party took office, because of a perceived duplication with the government-run Youth Street Outreach Service.
Just over one year later, that service was cut too, with funds being redirected into child protection.
Congress chief executive Donna Ah-Chee said if the Northern Territory Government had not cut funding the boy might still be alive.
“If such services had still been in place, this recent tragic death could have been prevented,” she said.
Ms Ah Chee said she wrote to the Minister for Children and Families John Elferink with her concerns over the funding cuts.
“[We] warned the Minister that the loss of such a key youth service would place young people at greater risk,” she said.
Mr McFarland said there was no longer anywhere safe at night for vulnerable children to go.
“There aren’t any night-time youth services in Alice Springs,” he said.
Following increased scrutiny, the Northern Territory Government announced an additional $4.2 million to be spent on youth services, with $1.25 million to be spent in Alice Springs.
But Mr Elferink told triple j’s Hack program he stood by his earlier decision to redirect funds out of youth programs.
“One of the sad manifestations of our passive welfare system is that we have child abuse aplenty in the Northern Territory,” he said.
“The choice is: do I draw services away from kids who are being raped … or do I put services into those children and take those child protection workers away from what is a sundry service?”
Local retailers move to lock up stock
Local teenagers at rehab facility Bush Mob told Hack that until recently it had been easy to steal deodorant cans from shops in town.
“[You] put it in your jocks or something,” said one teenager who used to sniff every day.
Now store managers at Coles, Woolworths and Kmart have locked up deodorants most popular with sniffers.
Kmart store manager Ted Carter said he had kept problem brands behind his counter for three months.
“What I’ve noticed is a high loss of deodorant in our store, empty cans of deodorant in our store and unfortunately from time to time people misusing deodorant in our store,” he said.
Mr Carter says he is also considering stocking roll-on only – a strategy that has been successful in some remote communities.