Australia makes non-addictive gasoline

A newly developed fuel has almost wiped out gasoline sniffing among Aborigines in Australia’s central desert, the Australian government said. As such, Senators said it should be made mandatory at all gas stations to have it. The Opal gasoline is a government-subsidized gasoline modified by BP P.L.C.’s Australian unit to remove most of the chemicals that create the euphoria that sniffers seek, has been introduced since 2006 into a growing number of Outback Aboriginal communities as a safer alternative to unleaded gas. “The supply of Opal fuel has been a resounding success in helping to reduce petrol sniffing,” a government report said. Tristan Ray, a social worker for the Central Australian Youth Link-Up Service who contributed to the report, estimated that the number of regular sniffers in the central desert had declined from 500 to 20. The report recommends that the gas stations within the targeted area be forced by law to stock Opal if they do not do so voluntarily within six months. But Rod McLean, manager of the Ti Tree Roadhouse gas station in the tiny central Australian desert town of Ti Tree said that his customers did not want to use Opal, partly because it was less efficient than standard unleaded fuel and he claimed it ruined small engines. (March 20, 2009)