Does the internet drug marketplace encourage people to try drugs who otherwise would not?
Does it increase the range of drugs that people are willing to try?
Are there any benefits to buying drugs online rather than on the street?
These are among the questions being asked in the 2015 Global Drug Survey, which seeks for the first time to work out the pros and cons of the internet drug trade.
The Global Drug Survey, which Fairfax Media is partnering for the third year, aims to get a snapshot of Australians' drug habits.
It also explores performance-enhancing drugs, prescription drug misuse and why people stop taking drugs.
The survey was completed by 80,000 people last year and is the world's biggest survey on current drug users, with collaborating media in 20 countries and translation into 10 languages.
A section on the darknet will help researchers gain an insight into the behaviour of online drug buyers including questions about whether people have experienced delays with their products arriving or if they have been seized by police.
The FBI shut down the biggest online drug marketplace, Silk Road 2.0, on November 5, but observers believe users and vendors have dispersed across a wide range of other sites.
A person claiming to be the administrator of another marketplace, Middle Earth, told a darknet blog that vendors had rushed to his site after the shutdown of Silk Road 2.0.
Listings on his site doubled to 400 within 48 hours.
"After the busts, new users count went through the roof and to my delight, the big vendors started knocking at my door," said the administrator, who identified as "the Hobbit".
The National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre's [NDARC] latest drugs trends bulletin found that the internet was stable as a source of obtaining drugs, with 6.5 per cent of all drugs reportedly purchased online.
Respondents to last Global Drug Survey cited convenience and price as their reasons for buying online rather than elsewhere.
UNSW research fellow Monica Barratt, who was involved in designing the darknet section of the Global Drug Survey, said the market quickly adapted after the fall of the original Silk Road, suggesting that it would continue to expand.
"In this survey we're moving on from asking 'why are you using darknet markets?' to what are the issues they are experiencing and how might that compare to alternative sources," said Dr Barratt, a policy specialist at NDARC.
Some analysts have suggested that drug users perceive the internet is a safer marketplace than street dealers, but the survey will test that assumption.
"It might be that their alternative sources are friendship networks, where people are unlikely to feel unsafe," Dr Barratt said.
British scientist Adam Winstock, the survey founder, said the organisation aimed to reach 120,000 people this year.
The last survey found that a record number of people were trying new drugs and that many Australians who were drinking at risky levels felt their consumption was average.
