During targeted urine tests, 11.63 per cent of prisoners tested positive for drugs at Hopkins in July and 8.33 per cent in August.

Hopkins recorded no positive tests for those months during last year.

If the prison outside Ararat continues to see this level of positive tests throughout 2017-18, then its average positive rate will end up double that of the two previous years.

Heroin substitutes, alcohol, smoking paraphernalia and weapons were the most common items seized by guards at Hopkins Correctional Centre during August and July.

Langi Kal Kal, a low security prison farm, saw 3.57 per cent of targeted tests return positive in July and no positive tests in August.

Since June, Hopkins has not matched the peak seen in 2016-17 of 17 per cent of tests returning positive in a month.

However, the levels of positive tests have seen a considerable increase since very low figures around January and February this year.

Hopkins carried out 12 targeted and 86 random drug tests during August out of a prison population of 719, while Langi Kal Kal carried out 19 targeted and 41 random tests out of 334 prisoners.  

The figures were contained in the latest Drugs in Prisons report from the Victorian Department of Justice.

Figures from the report suggests that Buprenorphine remains the most popular drug among prisoners in Hopkins Correctional Facility.

Buprenorphine is a controlled substance and has legitimate uses in managing withdrawal symptoms for heroin and opiate addicts, similar to methadone.

However, the opiate alternative can be abused to get high and is also cheap and easy to smuggle into prisons.

Buprenorphine is available via prescription as either a dissoluble film called Suboxone or a tablet called Subutex, both of which are meant to be taken orally.  

A common way to abuse Buprenorphine, at least outside of prison, is to crush its tablet form and inject the drug.

The drug was designed to help people recover from a heroin addiction, but it continued to be found in drug tests and contraband searches at Hopkins during August.

Hopkins Correctional Facility staff seized four tablets of prescription medication from one visitor and three smoking paraphernalia items on one visitor in August.

Langi Kal Kal Prison staff did not find any contraband on visitors during the same time frame.

During August, Hopkins Correctional Facility staff seized one gram of cannabis from one prisoner, a total of three prescription tablets on three prisoners, and a total of five buprenorphine tablets on three prisoners.

Hopkins staff also seized one syringe, five smoking paraphernalia items, seven edged weapons, one electronic device, five tools and 10 other contraband items in the same month.