SHARP-EYED teachers are on the lookout for students who turn up with red, blurry eyes and slurred speech.

It could be a sign that the teenager has been sniffing glue.

Teachers and schools are being roped in by the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) to battle a resurgence in glue-sniffing, a problem which was thought to have died out in the 1980s.

The bureau has briefed all primary and secondary schools, as well as Institutes of Technical Education (ITEs), islandwide on how to report students they suspect of inhaling glue, or those caught in the act.

The CNB announced on Tuesday that 352 inhalant abusers were caught in the first half of the year. Last year, it was 604, a five-fold increase on 2005.

Most abusers were teenagers. The substance is typically a $2 packet of contact cement, used to repair shoes or furniture.

Long-term abuse can lead to brain, kidney and liver damage. Hardcore abusers can die from suffocation or heart failure.

A check with several schools here found that teachers are looking for the telltale signs of blurry-eyes, sluggishness and slurred speech. Other measures include random bag checks.

If a student is found to be inhaling, the school will call the parents and alert the CNB, said Si Ling Secondary School principal Lau Kum Leng.

First-time abusers may be referred to school counsellors. Repeat abusers will be supervised directly by CNB officers and made to go for counselling. They will also be subject to random blood tests.

Catching a glue-sniffer early is key to turning him around.

'Those caught may just be experimenting and can still be rehabilitated. They are young kids after all,' said Mrs Lau.

Schools and counsellors say children turn to glue for the same reasons they did in the 1980s: peer pressure, boredom and curiosity.

Schools like Orchid Park Secondary keep those deemed 'at risk' or 'easily bored' busy with after-school activities, said its principal, Mrs Helen Tan.

Some parents hand over their children to the state when they cannot stop them sniffing glue.

In the first six months of the year, 52 out of 393 applications made by parents who considered their children to be Beyond Parental Control (BPC) were made on the grounds of substance abuse, mostly glue sniffing. There were 55 such applications in the same period last year.

If approved, a BPC order can see a child being sent away to a state-approved home for up to three years.

Dr Carol Balhetchet of the Singapore Children's Society, which screens the BPC applications, cheered the CNB's campaign to put schools on the frontline.

Former abusers can struggle for years to get back on their feet.

Mr Cheong, a glue sniffer at 15 who turned to heroin, still lives in a halfway house at age 38.

'I wished my teachers had caught me when I was young. Life would not be so hard for me now,' he told The Straits Times in Mandarin.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Aug 14, 2008.