Workers in Indigenous drug programs say promised funding increases in the 2006-07 federal Budget, while welcome, are woefully inadequate.
The Treasurer, Peter Costello, has promised the government will spend more than $55m over the next four years to expand drug abuse programs in central Australia.
There will be a particular focus on petrol-sniffing initiatives.
But an Associate Professor at Curtin University, Ted Wilkes, says the funds will not be enough.
"Never.
"The impact of drugs on poor Australians, and in particular on Aboriginal people, the diversity of substances that are used for people to escape - it's not going to come anywhere close to really meeting the need in its entirety but what can you say...you work in this field and you try your best to invoke governments to respond appropriately and if there's $55m on top of what we've already got - I'm certainly not going to knock it back."