SOME Singapore desperate parents are turning to the police when they fail to get their kids to kick the glue-sniffing habit, The New Paper reported on Monday.

Tom, a taxi driver, is one of them.

The New Paper Interviewed the father and son at the Jurong Police Divisional HQ last Thursday. Their names have been changed as a minor is involved.

The problems first started last year, when Tom's elderly father, who lives with the family bought a can of glue to mend a pair of his shoes.

Tom suddenly noticed that Mark, the second of his three children, was behaving unusually, coming home at odd hours and looking restless. One night, Mark came home from an outing with friends looking 'stoned' and mumbling incoherently.

Despite the family repeatedly confronting him about glue-sniffing, Mark denied ever taking a whiff.

Tom decided he had enough of the lies and drove his son straight to the Choa Chu Kang Neighbourhood Police Post, where the Police handcuffed the teenager and threw him into a cell at the Jurong Police Divisional HQ.

Said Tom:'I felt bad seeing him handcuffed. But for the future, I felt I was doing the right thing.

'My heart ached because nobody wants to do this to their children, but for him to get better, that was the only solution I could think of.'

Mark was also initially angry with his father. Said the youngster who has now kicked the habit: 'At first I blamed because I thought 'I am your son and you still me here. Are you trying to ruin me or what?'

'But now, I don't blame him because if my father had not done this, I would not have changed.'

The Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) revealed the desperate acts of parents to The New Paper, as glue sniffing cases have been rising in recent years. There were 644 reported cases of glue sniffing in 2007. Between January and June in 2008 alone, there were 352 cases.