CAYLUS started as a petrol sniffing prevention project in November 2002 from funding committed by the Howard government in response to a series of articles about petrol sniffing by the journalist Paul Toohey in The Australian. In its early years the program employed two community development workers and a caseworker. The staff initially worked across 12 communities, supporting the development of a
wide range of regionally and locally targeted petrol sniffing interventions. Program workers had good access to government decision makers, as well as a pool of funds to directly resource interventions. The program workers also had the good will of families and decision makers in many of the communities, as they had lived and worked across these communities for extended periods in other roles. CAYLUS supported interventions have included rehabilitation projects, youth programs, a responsible retail of solvents program, night patrols, policing initiatives, football carnivals, video and radio projects and more. Whilst many supply-reduction measures specifically targeted inhalants, the demand-reduction measures such as development of community-based recreation and youth programs have had a myriad of other health, substance misuse prevention and community safety outcomes. Staff initially promoted use of aviation gas as a non-sniffable fuel, along with promoting the use of the Misuse of Drugs Act (NT) to prevent dealing. The workers offered a hotline service whereby community members were able to dob in dealers of petrol, 12 dealers were reported to police in this way in the first few months of the service. CAYLUS staff worked closely with families to facilitate access to rehabilitation programs and worked with these services to varying degrees to help develop their programs and services. CAYLUS staff worked with other stakeholders to advocate to the NT government for a range of measures including better data collection, better policing around petrol sniffing and better rehabilitation options. This resulted in the introduction of the NT Volatile Substance Abuse Prevention Act 2005 and a complementary investment in support programs by the NT government. One of the most useful outcomes of this legislation is that it gives communities the ability to make possession of sniffable petrol illegal altogether within their bounds, thereby making petrol dealing far more difficult. With the advent of Opal fuel in 2005, it became feasible for the first time to implement a non-sniffable fuel across the region. CAYLUS staff worked with communities promoting the use of the fuel. They also advocated for a change in Commonwealth government policy, first to allow roadhouses to use the fuel and eventually to a region wide rollout in Central Australia. Although data collection has been patchy, staff estimate at the time of writing that numbers of people sniffing in the region have been reduced from 500 to less than 20 as a result. Staff continue to work toward rolling youth programs out to all communities in order to engage youth who were previously sniffing in positive activities and programs. There is currently no Commonwealth Government commitment to the universal provision of these complementary services.
