Nine crew comes face to face with Melbourne's drug problem

A suspected drug dealer caught apparently plying his trade on the streets of Melbourne in broad daylight has told a Channel Nine reporter in no uncertain terms that he's got mouths to feed.

Jonathan Kearsley chanced upon the miscreant while shooting a TV package on Melbourne's ever-worsening – and increasingly visible – drug problem, and when he asked the fellow if he was "buying or selling", the answer was blunt.

"Mate I've got a family," the man, decked out in a flannel shirt and flat cap, whined. "F—k off."

"It's a major problem here mate, are you part of the problem?" Kearsley pressed.

"Um…I'm caught up in it, sure," the man replied.

Yarra Council is considering an injecting room trial to keep drugs off the streets in notorious hotspots.

Photographs taken in Hosier Lane, which is close to Federation Square, show addicts using all manner of drugs, quite openly, around the clock.

The solution, some believe, is to trial dedicated drug-administering rooms, like Sydney's "shooting gallery" in Kings Cross, which has saved lives and helped to curb some of the social problems caused by heroin use.

"The government needs to start getting real," Stephen Jolly, of the City of Yarra Council, told 9News.

"They're stomping their feet on the ground like spoiled kids saying 'drugs need to go away'," he said.

"Well unfortunately drugs aren't going to go away."

Last year 420 deaths from drug overdoses were recorded, up from 387 in 2014. Councillor Jolly is among those hoping that an injecting room trial will go ahead sooner rather than later.

"We have to have a total revolution in drug policy," the councillor said.

"The current policy's not working. More and more people are taking drugs, the prices are  going down, and it's just chaos for people like us who live on the front line."