More people are buying recreational drugs such as ecstasy and cocaine online, partly because it is much cheaper than buying them on the street, where the price of drugs in Australia is more than double the global average.

An international survey on drug habits has detected a rapid increase over the past six years in the number of people who buy their drugs online using sites such as Silk Road, whose founder was jailed for life last month.

The Global Drug Survey 2015, which was conducted in partnership with global media organisations including Fairfax Media, polled 102,000 people from 50 countries, including 4030 from Australia, about their patterns of drug use.