A director of harm reduction group Unharm, Will Tregoning, said the rate of increase in arrests for minor drug offences was "extraordinary".

"One of the key things about this is that despite the fact we have seen a doubling of the arrest rates in NSW, there has not been a decrease in illicit use of drugs over that period," he said. Figures from the National Household Drug Survey of more than 24,000 people this week showed Australians are now more likely to have tried illicit drugs than to have tried tobacco. It showed about 14 per cent of people in NSW had now used an illicit drug in the past year, or more than 1 million people.

Cannabis was by far the most commonly used, followed by pharmaceutical drugs. People in NSW and Canberra were more likely to use cocaine than other states. An analysis of drug arrest data from the Australian Crime Commission and the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, prepared for Fairfax Media by Dr Tregoning and Dr Vendula Belackova, shows a large proportion of the increase in arrests have been for cannabis. Supply arrests have remained relatively stable. "[Still], we are looking at only a few per cent of illicit drug users being arrested every year," Dr Tregoning, a drugs researcher, said. "Effectively it's just random, but it's not wholly random because some people are more likely to be targeted, for instance if you are a homeless person or someone who uses drugs in a public setting, like a dance festival." The Criminal Law Committee of the NSW Bar Association believes the prohibitionist approach to illicit drugs has "substantially failed" and has had limited effect in reducing drug availability and use.

It said the prohibition of drugs gave life to an unregulated black market, increased the risk of drug overdose and the growth of criminal networks. The committee's chairman, Steve Odgers SC, said one of the only ways to achieve a reduction in drug-related harm and use was to replace the black market with a form of legal availability under a highly regulated system. "Given the harm to individuals and society that results from prohibition, the time has come to give serious consideration to alternatives," Mr Odgers said. "We are also concerned about the harm that is caused by the current prohibitionist model with its heavy reliance on the criminal law to deter drug use," he said.

The committee believed decriminalisation of cannabis was a practical first step to reducing drug use, followed by the decriminalisation of all drugs before a regulatory model was adopted. Mr Odgers said a regulated model would initially lead to increased drug usage but the risk could be mitigated. By allowing the government to have oversight of production and sale of drugs the risk of overdose, mislabelling and consumption from the black market would be reduced. It would reduce drug-related crime, law enforcement and incarcertion expenditure and allow police to focus on drug production and trafficking rather than target individual users. NSW Police drug squad commander, Superintendent Tony Cooke believes the dismantling of drug rings and arresting offenders is an effective way to reduce drug use.

"We will continue our efforts to track down and arrest manufacturers and suppliers and remove their drugs from the community. We will continue to take action to strip them of their assets," Superintendent Cooke said. He also said it was a job for police and the wider community to educate children and to help change culture. Fairfax Media supporting the Global Drug Survey, the largest survey of drug use patterns in the world. Please visit http://www.globaldrugsurvey.com/GDS2015/ and fill in the survey, to contribute to research on drug and alcohol use.