GAS-SNIFFING CANADIAN KIDS PLEAD FOR HELP

SHAWINIGAN, Quebec -- A native teenager addicted to sniffing gasoline, and
some of her community leaders, laid their tragic stories before Canadian
Prime Minister Jean Chretien on Sunday and pleaded for his help.

Nympha Rich, 18, has been sniffing petrol fumes for five years. Standing
before reporters with her head bowed, occasionally wiping tears, she said
through an interpreter that some of her friends have died doing the same.

"I would stop if I get helped," she said quietly.

Nympha belongs to the aboriginal Innu community of Davis Inlet, a
poverty-stricken village of 604 people on an island off the Atlantic coast
of Labrador.

The community of Davis Inlet made worldwide headlines in the 1990s for a
rash of suicides among children. There, reportedly 154 of the island's 169
children aged 10 to 19 have attempted sniffing gasoline fumes, which can
cause permanent brain damage. Seventy are chronic sniffers like Nympha, who
complained it hurt her head and her stomach.

The Davis Inlet delegation gave Chretien a nine-point plan that included
access to a detoxification center that can keep addicts for up to two years
and speeding up a plan to move the community off the island.

Nympha's problems are symptomatic of the many difficulties that face native
communities across Canada, where unemployment is high and alcoholism rampant.

Earlier this year, Survival International reported that the Innu people
killed themselves at a rate of 178 suicides per 100,000 people between 1990
and 1998, almost 13 times more than the rate among other Canadians.

The federal and provincial governments have worked with Innu leaders to try
to resolve the situation in and around Davis Inlet, sometimes disputing
over whose fault the problems are, but meanwhile the number of those who
have tried sniffing has tripled in eight years.

"Our youth are in the hands of the prime minister now, and we've stated our
case, and I hope he gives the resources to help our kids," said Luke Rich,
a father of three children addicted to gasoline fumes. Despite their common
surname, he is not Nympha's father.

"I have stated to him that there are so many broken promises, I hope his
word is good enough for us."

Rich said one idea was for a family renewal center. He said he and his wife
were treated for alcoholism but he wished he could have included his whole
family.

Chretien is a former minister of Indian affairs and has an adopted native
son from Inuvik in the Northwest Territories. He promised to talk to his
health and Indian affairs ministers.

A Chretien aide called the problem "sad" and "complex," since that one of
the challenges is to prevent the children returning to the habit once they
had been treated.

After seeing disturbing television footage on the problem, officials from
Ottawa and the province of Newfoundland met Sunday with Innu leaders in
Labrador, the aide said.

"This is an example that we still have very difficult social problems in
the land and that type of problem will never be resolved by market forces,"
he told reporters.