Australian schools generally exclude inhalants from the mainstream drug education curriculum. A national policy framework on inhalant abuse recently endorsed by the Australian Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy has concluded that it is inappropriate to provide youth who have not already initiated inhalant use with information about possible use of these products as drugs. It recommended that the current Australian approach be continued (National Inhalant Abuse Taskforce 2006). In the main, the reasons provided for excluding inhalants from school-based drug education curricula are not supported by recent research. Inhalants are apparently associated with more deaths in Victoria than cannabis, stimulants, or other hallucinogens, all of which are included in mainstream drug education curricula. Many inhalant-associated deaths occur in youth of school age. Not including accurate information on the characteristics and dangers of inhalants means that youth are left to learn about it from other youth, who may describe attractive intoxicating experiences without knowing of associated dangers. Risk factors for inhalant use have been cited by researchers as being of a young age, the accessibility of inhalant products, the legality of inhalant use, and the possibility of "copycat" behavior. Researchers in the United Kingdom have noted that inhalant-associated mortality has decreased since the early 1990s. They link this trend with a national campaign to educate parents about inhalants, along with the inclusion of inhalant abuse as part of education in schools. 30 references