• 28/6/99 - Dealing on easy street
• 22/6/99 - A 'Great Joint' Just For Coffee
• 20/6/99 - Over the counter marijuana

The Sunday Telegraph bought three small sachets of cannabis for $50 from a man who was running the Cafe Amsterdam in Roslyn Street, Kings Cross.

While inside the cafe we witnessed other patrons buying similar bags, a woman cutting up vegetable matter which appeared to be cannabis, and other people openly smoking what smelled like marijuana cigarettes.

A person who visited the cafe separately from The Sunday Telegraph said yesterday he was asked by a waiter if he wanted "anything".

When he said "what have you got" the waiter produced three small bags of what appeared to be marijuana and said it would cost $20. He refused the offer and then left the cafe.

The Sunday Telegraph had the substance we purchased tested by the toxicology unit at Pacific Laboratory Medicine Services.

Toxicologist Peter Bowron said: "We found the active ingredient of cannabis, Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in the substance. "It is cannabis." The laboratory, as required by law, destroyed the substance after testing it.

The revelations come a fortnight before Premier Bob Carr is due to announce his Government's response to last month's historic drug summit, which recommended trials of heroin shooting galleries and relaxed laws for marijuana possession.

When The Sunday Telegraph visited the cafe a middle-aged man with a dark bushy beard led us to a table.

"You can have a coffee but you don't have to," he said. "We don't push coffee here." He put two glasses of water on the table. When told we did not really want coffee but we "definitely wanted a glass of water" the man asked "How much?"

The Sunday Telegraph reporter held up two fingers to indicate $20 worth. The man returned a short time later and placed two bags of marijuana on the table. A Sunday Telegraph photographer captured the incident on a hidden video camera.

The man later indicated we could have three bags for $50. The Sunday Telegraph accepted the offer and received the third bag, which contained just a few grams of cannabis, before leaving. The cafe has a sign in its front window which reads "what a great joint".

Cafe Amsterdam is located about 200 metres from Kings Cross police station. --

Just a day after The Sunday Telegraph alleged that it was easier to get a bag of marijuana than a cup of coffee from the Roslyn St. cafe, the front door was open and all patrons were welcome.

But the smoky haze that filled the small cafe came from burning incense and the most potent drug they appeared to be selling was a short black.

The cheeky hand-painted sign declaring Cafe Amsterdam to be a "great joint" still hung in the window while a handful of customers sat at the tables sipping coffees.

A waitress at the cafe said yesterday she did not know anything about the weekend report that the cafe openly sold marijuana to a Sunday Telegraph reporter while other patrons chopped and smoked drugs. The cafe owner could not be contacted as he was out sailing.

Cafe Amsterdam is decorated in the same style as the drug coffee shops in the city that inspired the business's name. Posters of Amsterdam and artist Vincent van Gogh adorn the walls, while a few ferns hang in the window.

In the tiny kitchen there's a noticeable lack of food but at least the coffee machine seems to work.

There's little to choose from in the way of seating arrangements. Customers can perch at small wooden tables in the darkened corners of the cafe while a few seats offer a window view.

Not that there's much to see, just the passing parade of Kings Cross dwellers.

The waitress said marijuana was definitely not on the menu yesterday. "I'm just the waitress trying to get through my shift," she said.

A police spokesman said officers from Kings Cross station, which is about 200m away from the cafe, were investigating the illegal drug trade allegations.

He said there were a number of ongoing overt and covert operations focussing on drug dealers and suppliers in the area.

But the spokesman said police could not elaborate.

A spokeswoman for police minister Paul Whelan was unable to comment on what was an "operational policing matter" when asked if any steps were being taken to shut down the business.

She said Mr Whelan had requested a report from police about the matter.

Opposition police spokesman Andrew Tink said police could use the Disorderly Houses Act to "shut down" the coffee shop by obtaining a declaration from the Supreme Court.

Mr Tink said a declaration could be obtained from court that a premises was a disorderly house if there were "reasonable grounds for suspecting" drugs were unlawfully sold or supplied.

--

A man wheeling a pram asks any loiterers in Roslyn St, Kings Cross, whether they want any "smoke".

He pulls resealable bags of marijuana from his jacket pocket and lets prospective customers sniff his wares, while his baby son looks on.

"It's good stuff – you can smell it from here," he boasts.

One week after a front-page Sunday Telegraph story detailing drug deals at the Cafe Amsterdam, this is the scene outside, in Roslyn St, Kings Cross.

A young boy, barely a teenager, organises heroin and marijuana deals on his mobile phone. He hides two yellow balloons of heroin under his tongue, then sells them for $80 each.

"I swallowed two of these last week," he jokes, before he dashes up Roslyn St again to fill some more orders.

"Go and see that girl up there," he suggests to one user looking to score.

"I'll be waiting around here for you," he tells another customer who has to get some money from an ATM.

The Daily Telegraph watches him sell to 10 different people, including a man from the Cafe Amsterdam who had stood up in the cafe a few minutes earlier and boasted: "If anyone's seen the paper today, we're signing autographs out the back."

The man hands the boy some $20 notes, and then walks back inside the cafe.

Five other dealers work the same area. In an hour they sell to 40 different people.

Cleaned up before the State election, Kings Cross is as dirty as it ever was. For a price, you can buy whatever you want on Roslyn St, Kings Cross.

Last night, a spokesman for the NSW Premier, Mr Carr, said the Roslyn St drug scene was an "operational issue", and the Premier's office would not interfere.

A spokesman for the Police Minister, Mr Whelan, said they would not comment because there was an "ongoing police investigation".

Nevertheless, the spokesman added: "Commissioner Ryan has sought advice from the Crown Solicitor, and in light of allegations raised by the Daily Telegraph he's asked for a report from the Commissioner."

Officers at the local police station refused to comment.

After a week of headlines calling for action, there is action aplenty on Roslyn St yesterday.

But none of it comes from the Kings Cross police station, which sits about 200m from this thriving trade.

So hectic was his business yesterday that the young dealer had trouble keeping up.

"Oh, you wanted something too didn't you – sorry mate, I forgot about you," he explains to a customer who had placed his order 20 minutes earlier, and was sitting patiently on a nearby brick wall.

The buyer later shows his purchase to the Daily Telegraph: a few grams of heroin wrapped inside a tightly folded piece of foil which was stuffed into the small yellow water balloon.

A female buyer hurries into Kellett Way, pulls up her jacket sleeve and injects as she walks back down towards the Cafe Amsterdam.

Two parking police booking cars in the lane avert their gaze.

And in the Picolo Bar, just across Roslyn St from the Amsterdam, a table of young men pass around what smells suspiciously like a joint.

Sticky-taped to the wall behind them is a cutting from last week's Sunday Telegraph about their marijuana-dealing competitor.

Back in the Amsterdam, they're complaining about all the attention.

"Why are they picking on us, when there's four other places in this street doing the same thing?" declares one cafe manager.

But then he confides to his friends, "business trebled after the first story."

They sit in the back of the cafe, sharing a joint.

The pungent aroma is diluted by incense burning in the entrance.

Staff in the cafes are becoming reluctant to deal to strangers.

One Canadian tourist, Adam, isn't served and has to buy in the street from the pram man.

"I was in here two weeks ago and there were no problems – today they ignored me," he says.

A police paddy wagon cruised down Roslyn St twice yesterday afternoon, slowing but not stopping outside the Cafe Amsterdam.

The dealers and loiterers had vanished a few moments earlier.