REWARD FOR 'CANNABUS'

Nimbin's HEMP Embassy is offering a reward for the return of its Cannabus to lead the campaign against drug laws.

HEMP (Help End Marijuana Prohibition) Embassy operations manager Graeme Dunstan said yesterday the 1964 Leyland Viking bus has featured for years in the annual Mardi Grass in Nimbin.

The bus, painted in psychedelic colours and used by the HEMP Embassy at last year's NSW Drug Summit, was last heard of late last year when its then owner called from Roma police station for assistance with bail.

"We dont know where it has gone.  Someone must have needed it," Mr Dunstan said.

"But now we want it back."

Mr Dunstan said an ounce of bush buds' and 10 tickets to the Nimbin 2000 'Let It Grow' Mardi Grass will be offered for information leading to the recovery of the bus.

The activists, in partnership with Justice Action, hope that if the bus is returned it will become the vanguard of the HEMP Embassy's plans to visit every jail in NSW in August to count the number of what it calls 'the prisoners of the war on drug users'.

They have demanded an amnesty for all NSW prisoners convicted of drug use before the Sydney Olympics in September.

"In this time of escalating drugs deaths and rising prisoner numbers, the NSW Government's drug law reform program is too slow and too timid." Mr Dunstan said.

He has sent a letter to the NSW Special Minister of State, John Della Bosca, calling for the amnesty.

He said drug prohibition policies were a costly failure and a social disaster.