Fijians who engage in glue sniffing, smoking marijuana and taking other illicit drugs, claim they do it as a coping mechanism.
They claim they are overwhelmed by the challenges they face in life and their inability to handle it and acknowledge they are addicts.
The Fiji Times took to streets and alleyways to find out why an increasing number of Fijians, some as young as eight, are sniffing glue and taking illicit substances on an almost daily basis.
While different individuals had different reasons and back stories as to how their journey to using drugs and sniffing industrial adhesives started, the majority said they did it because they could not cope with everyday problems.
One glue sniffer said he has been “sniffing” since he was 15.
Today, seven years later, he said his day would be incomplete if he did not get a sniff of the toxic substance.
“Yes, you can say that I am addicted, but the feeling I get from sniffing, it is a level of satisfaction I’ve never felt from anything,” he said.
“When I sniff it, I just get lost in another world, all my problems suddenly disappear. My hunger goes away, the thoughts of being useless, unemployed and a burden to my family goes away.
“I tried to get a job and turn things around but, unfortunately, no one wants to hire me because I have little to no experience and also because of my look, people just turn me away.”
The 21-year-old said that lack of family time and family engagement during his formative and teenage years led him to make wrong decisions and resulted in his addiction.
“My parents had their own lives to live, and we hardly had family time, so I began to look elsewhere for happiness. I found a group of boys from the area, and they introduced me to glue sniffing, its cheap and accessible.”
He said as much as he wanted to stop sniffing glue, it was very difficult. He said a day without it would make him anxious and feel like a part of his body was missing.
“I can’t describe the feeling, it’s just a feeling that something is missing from my life.”
