At the outset of the hearing a lawyer for the detainee Mark O'Connor's family read a statement on their behalf, which asked the questions who is to blame for his death, and who killed him?

"Did the AMC do everything in its power to stop this?" the statement read.

But the inquest will not consider generalities or the eternal problem of drugs being available in prisons.

That problem is not unique to the ACT correctional system, and had been covered extensively by an inquest and other inquiries following the death of another inmate, Steven Freeman, in 2016, the court heard.

"It is a continuing problem in the AMC," the government's counsel Ken Archer conceded, and told the court he would not be arguing otherwise.

He said the source of the specific drugs from within the prison to which Mr O'Connor fell victim will be a matter for investigation but whether the court will get to the bottom of it is another question. There is almost an “unlimited possibility for exchange” once the drugs are inside, Mr Archer said.

An answer is anything but certain; the investigation found there were multiple opportunities for Mr O’Connor to receive drugs from other inmates even in the hours and days before his death.

The court also heard about the extreme measure one inmate took in the days after the man’s death to prevent detection of his drug use by prison authorities by swallowing a capped syringe.

Mr O'Connor, 29, died in prison on May 13, 2017, with a cocktail of drugs present in his system including ice and buprenorphine, as well as an anti-psychotic medication.

The author of the toxicology report found there was enough ice in Mr O’Connor’s system to be fatal but attributed the cause of death to multiple drug toxicity.

Mr O'Connor had a difficult life and began using marijuana at age 12 and alcohol a year later, before moving onto ice and heroin.

At the time of his death he was in custody for violent robberies, and had been in custody since 2009 with only two short stints on the outside in that time.

A police investigation into the death of Mr O'Connor found that on the day he died he had been acting normal and talking about his plans after prison.

Detective Leading Senior Constable Tracy Darragh told the ACT Coroner’s Court that the exact source of the drugs was unknown but there were no suspicious circumstances around Mr O'Connor's death.

Surveillance footage showed a number of detainees pass items to and from the cell, but they declined to give statements.

In one instance, the footage showed an inmate receive his anti-psychotic medication quetiapine from the medical window before placing a hand to his mouth and returning it to his pocket.

He later went to Mr O'Connor's cell and passed something through the door.

The medication the inmate had received from the medical window was the same found in Mr O'Connor's system.

Buprenorphine, which was also found in Mr O'Connor's system, is a drug prescribed in the prison to treat opiate addiction.

But when prescribed it is given in the form of Suboxone, which also contains Naloxone, the court heard.

Naloxone reverses the effects of opiods and so works to prevent overdoses.

But buprenorphine alone is common contraband and "the drug of choice for inmates" according to a supervisor at the prison whose words from an earlier The Canberra Times article were read to the court.

Naloxone was not found in Mr O'Connor's system, the court heard.

The two-day inquest before Coroner Glenn Theakston continues on Wednesday.