Deodorant sniffing on rise as kids chase new ‘highs’

CHILDREN as young as eight are involved in a sudden spike in aerosol sniffing in South Hedland, with 27 thefts of deodorant cans reported last weekend and empty canisters found discarded in a range of public locations.

South Hedland Police Sen. Sgt Peter Pope said it appeared sniffing was on the increase but the evidence was largely anecdotal because retailers in the town weren’t reporting all the thefts.

However, community members had reported seeing children sniffing at all hours of the day around Lotteries House, the South Hedland CBD redevelopment site and out the back of the South Hedland Shopping Centre.

This week, discarded cans at some of those sites offered another telltale sign.

Sen. Sgt Pope said retailers selling deodorant in Hedland had been reluctant to put the cans behind screens because it was an everyday product that everyone bought.

He understood that, but believed it would reduce sniffing if the stores were more willing to police their displays.

“We can then police the other end of it,” he said.

In the meantime, police have been conducting foot patrols through Hedland’s shopping centres to try to catch children in the act of stealing or buying the cans.

“It’s mainly the supermarket type set-ups because everything is on display — they just hang around there and pick (the cans) up, put them in their pockets and wander outside,” he said. “There are kids in there, obviously without money to

buy anything else — so we’ve been telling them to leave and they’ve been going.”

Port Hedland resident Bob Neville said more resources were needed to address the antisocial behaviour.

He said extensive damage had recently occurred at the redevelopment site and near the medical centre, with offenders vandalising vehicles and stealing a breathalyser.

“We’re on this journey toward becoming a city but we need to take people along with us,” Mr Neville said.

Sen. Sgt Pope said poor lighting in the area made it hard to catch children in the act.

“That will all change as things move forward but in the present time, we’ve got a group of kids who are really destroying their lives,” he said.

He said parents could identify children who had been sniffing as they usually “smelled really nice” and displayed unusual

behaviour.

“If your child comes home smelling (strongly) of deodorant … you’ve just got to watch their behaviour,” Sen. Sgt Pope

said. “The sniffing tends to make them very aggressive.”

The problem was not confined to South Hedland. Sen. Sgt Pope said desert communities also had “huge problems” with

aerosol sniffing. In the East Kimberley in 2009, a 14-year-old Kununurra teen also died after inhaling from a deodorant can.

In some communities, shops have replaced aerosols deodorants with roll-ons to combat the problem.

Hedland police will conduct school visits next term to warn children of the dangers of sniffing aerosols, as Sen. Sgt Pope said it was “obviously not good for them”.

“It’s something that we’re really concerned about, but most of the time there’s very little legislative base for us to do any actions,” he said.

“If they’re sniffing, obviously they’re not being looked after as well as they should be.”