IT'S mid-morning in Nimbin and drugs are brazenly being dealt outside a day care centre, in a cafe and on the pavement - just 200m from a police station. How does this happen?

Visitors to the picturesque town in northern New South Wales need only walk down the 200m main street to be hit up half a dozen times.

"Would you like something?" ask the working-age men and women who loiter, day after day, outside shops and cafes on Cullen St.

The dealers are visible and relaxed in their environment, until someone yells "taxi" and they scatter.

It's just another day in Australia's marijuana capital.

A local police officer, who doesn't want to be named, said drugs are dealt everywhere.

And it's not just cannabis. Harder drugs including methamphetamines are being peddled about as well.

"They deal outside the day care centre. They deal everywhere but we walk up the street, they yell out 'taxi' and off they go," he said.

"We walk through, from one end of town to the other, and people yell ‘taxi, taxi, taxi'. Then people do their deals and run.

"People complain about the drug dealing in the street but how do you combat it when they're so skilled up?

"We can find, in a year, 8kg of drugs lying in the street. The drug use here is incredible."

The seedy street-trade is most visible down Rainbow Lane, between the museum and the Rainbow Cafe.

Near the museum's back door sits a bong and a bowl of mix-up. At the end of the lane five "lane boys" sit around a table underneath the big tree.

"They're the most dangerous in town," an officer said. "They're back in town at the moment; they were playing up on Friday night.

"A lot of the boys have grown up here. Their parents were hippies and they've become the dealers."

But most of them live on the Gold Coast now.

"They're walking around with $500 in their pocket every day," an officer said. "We take the money off them and the courts give it back. It's problematic for us."

A rock-wall known as ‘the boulder' is where a lot of deals are negotiated. A lane boy offers a passing tourist a half-ounce for $140.

Across the road boozers are sitting outside the Hemp Cafe. It's 11am on a Tuesday.

A skinny guy with a beard is sitting on the footpath. He's got a few bags and a bike jacket with him. He's a hard drug user. Police are still trying to work out where he gets his drugs.

Around the corner there's another big table near the 'smoko shed'. Most go there for a smoke but down the back is where they do a lot of the buys.

The trade peaks on Fridays when everyone comes into town for Bongo Night.

"It's so institutionalised and secretive here," an officer said.

"There are cameras in the street but you can only follow people so far and then they disappear."

Nevertheless, they're dedicated to cleaning up the picturesque town and fixing its dirty image.

Richmond Local Area Command crime manager Detective inspector Greg Moore said police do what they can to smash the street trade with the resources they have.

"We've got dedicated strategies but Nimbin has a culture," he said.

"Nimbin is known the world around for its drug culture and the numerous buses that go in daily makes it hard to ensure the same level of compliance (with the law) as we have in the rest of the state.

"There certainly could be a lot higher level of enforcement if we had more officers but we've got to be responsible with the resources we have."

Det Insp Moore, based in Lismore, is in charge of 190 officers policing 14 sectors. Nine officers are based at Nimbin.

Local police work with specialist units within the state police force to combat illicit drugs.

"We regularly have overt operations out there, we do frequent drug dog sweeps and on a daily basis police are out there seizing drugs," he said.

"We've got one of the highest drug seizure rates in the state and that's not just for minor possession but also for indictable levels and commercials quantities of drugs.

"It is a very complex scenario out there. It's not like we're dealing with a problem that, at the level it's at, is faced by any other town in the country."

Nimbin is on the backpacker route and young people flock to the area.

"That makes it difficult for police to stamp out drug supply if tourists keep coming here looking for it. It's supply and demand," he said.

"We do enforcements and shake it up. We do high profile stuff, undercover stuff and long term enforcements where we target the mid to upper level suppliers.

"But that reputation brings its own challenges because there are always people willing to go there because there's a ready market."

Another officer said they were fighting a losing battle.

"If I stop you in the street, I've got to tell you the reason why and make sure your rights aren't impinged. Don't worry about the fact that you're living off the proceeds," he said.

"It makes it tough when you've got a barrister and all of these self-proclaimed solicitors giving them advice saying 'police can do this, police can't do that'.

"This is what we're battling."

The Nimbin Hemp Embassy is a non-profit association advocating for cannabis law reform. Its website advises cannabis-users of how to evade detection.

"You do not have to say anything to the police, whether they arrest you or not," it says on the website.

"It is usually better to say something like, ‘I do not wish to say anything until I get legal advice'. Beware of small talk and being trapped into a conversation. Just tell them your name, age and address.

"If you admit anything (or say something that sounds like you're admitting something), the police can use that in evidence against you."

Det Insp Moore said he was glad the public know their rights.

"The police have a legal framework to work with. We comply with the obligations of the law and I think it's good that people are aware of their rights because it can avoid confusion," he said.

"We're not about trying to bluff people. If we intend to search someone or pull a vehicle over or arrest or detain someone, I think it's a good thing if people are aware of their rights."

According to the 2011 Census, 11.6 per cent of Nimbin's population is unemployed - more than twice the national average of 5.5 per cent.

The median weekly personal income for people aged 15 years and over in Nimbin is $366, according to the national survey.

"You've got the people living off the dope," an officer said. "They're all getting Centrelink. It shits me. And they're getting cash deals."

The high level of illicit drug activity has other ugly side-affects.

Health professions are constantly exposed to mental health issues resulting from cannabis use.

This week police were called to Nimbin Hospital where staff were subjected to a patient's ice-induced rage.

Nimbin, 33km north of Lismore, has a permanent population of 1668 but that doesn't include the hundreds who live in "communities" on the Multiple Occupancy rural properties dotted throughout the hills outside the town.

The town's population mushroomed from the Aquarius alternative lifestyle festival held in Nimbin in 1973. The festival is now known as the Mardi Grass.

Its creator Bob Hopkins last year said he was ashamed of Nimbin's "drug town" image, 20 years after the first festival.

Mr Hopkins told the ABC that the event had achieved nothing in the battle for drug law reform, cannabis can be harmful and he was ashamed of the town's image as a haven for peddlers.

As well as the cannabis counterculture, Nimbin is also known for its environmental initiatives such as permaculture, sustainability, self-sufficiency.

The boys (and girls) in blue walk a fine line to protect, police and be a part of the alternative community.

"We've got a good relationship with townsfolk out there at Nimbin," Det Insp Moore said.

"Like any town there are people there of all different backgrounds and the police doing their best to get in there with the community and build that good relationship where they can police from within the community effectively."

But other officers are more candid.

"We could shut the (drug trade) down in a week if we wanted to but I reckon the police station and the two houses (attached) would be burnt to the ground," one officer said.

Despite attempts to gain the community's trust, hostility remains.

Recently the tyres on a patrol car were slashed. A few years back meat was hung from tree branches outside an officer's home.

Most don't stay past their three-year posting.

"Lately most don't finish it because some can't get over the fact that this dealing is going on.

"At the end of the day we just keep going."

Despite the ongoing battle, the region's top cop is optimistic.

"We've made some great inroads in most if not all of the major crime categories in this area over the past five years," he said.

"We do what we can to try to minimise that drug supply but there are other issues in the community that need police attention. Police have been working to make Nimbin a safe place despite the challenges.

"We'll continue to get the message out there that if people want to travel to Nimbin and break the law, we have constant operations out there and daily arrests, so if people want to run the gauntlet that's their prerogative."

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