Petrol Sniffing interventions have been reviewed in an article ‘Volatile Substance Misuse: a review of interentions’ by Peter d’Abbs and Sarah MacLean and published by the Department of Health and Aging. One study looks at the Aboriginal run community of Ilpurna where a substance abuse centre has been purpose built.

The experience of Ilpurla illustrates some of the difficulties outstations have experienced in caring for young people exhibiting risky behaviours with minimal resources. Ilpurla is a cattle station where as part of a petrol sniffing program young people are taught skills such as breaking in horses and maintaining vehicles and stock equipment (Central Australian Youth Link-Up Service, 2006a).

In 1998, Northern Territory Coroner Warren Donald held an inquest in Alice Springs into the death four years earlier of a 14 year old boy at Ilpurla. The boy, a chronic petrol sniffer, had died from loss of blood after punching a window while intoxicated from sniffing. Earlier on the same day, while still intoxicated, he had been placed at the outstation by a relative. Donald concluded that the boy had been accepted into the care of the outstation without any medical assessment of his condition, and placed under the supervision of people who lacked the necessary skills or training to identify or respond to his needs.

Further, when the medical emergency occasioned by the boy lacerating his arm took place, the outstation did not have adequate communication facilities for obtaining prompt medical advice. (The outstation had no telephone, despite having been trying to obtain one for six years.)

The coroner found that the absence of trained medical personnel to conduct assessments prior to sending young people to outstations, along with inadequate communication technology at the outstation, contributed to his death (Donald 1998, p. 28). He concluded that, although outstations such as Ilpurla provided temporary respite, both for sniffers themselves and for their communities, they were not adequately resourced to meet the often complex psychological and medical needs of chronic sniffers.

Despite the difficulties inherent in providing services at remote locations it is apparent that homeland centres used in responding to volatile substance misuse must be not be located close to main roads or communities. They must be isolated to prevent people escaping and petrol or other drugs coming in (Mosey, 1997).