His drug of choice is alcohol, but he is next most likely to smoke marijuana, most likely in the few hours before bed.

If he was to try psychedelics, he may be motivated by the desire to expand his mind.

He pays more per gram for cocaine than he would if he lived anywhere else in the world.

The fictional Mr Tripp is the typical Australian respondent to the Global Drug Survey 2017, which was conducted in partnership with harm reduction groups and global media, including Fairfax Media.

The report's authors caution that participants in the survey are likely to be people who are interested in the topic of drug use and the report should not be used to draw national estimates.

But the survey does spot patterns and emerging trends and can be used to make comparisons within the drug-using population.

More than three-quarters of the 5700 Australian respondents to the anonymous survey of 115,000 people had used illegal drugs and around one in three had used them in the past month.

They were more likely to take cannabis than legal drugs, including tobacco and caffeinated drinks, and the next most popular illegal drug was ecstasy, followed by cocaine and LSD.

Australians respondents were not the biggest cannabis users in the world, but they were the biggest bong users, with water pipes more popular in Australia than any other country.

They had a slight preference for smoking their weed with tobacco but the difference was small, whereas every other country had a clear cultural preference.

Survey respondents from New Zealand and the Americas much preferred straight marijuana, while those from Europe were bigger fans of mixing it with tobacco.

And they were more likely than most other countries' citizens to have injected drugs, with 6 per cent of respondents admitting to having done so in their lifetime compared with 2 per cent globally.

GDS founder and chief investigator Adam Winstock said Australians picked up what they could get hold of and were quick to pick up on global trends but these were sometimes slow to spread as a result of border control policies and dealing networks.

"The dark net will challenge this, as will a wealthy group who will make cocaine a worthwhile risk," Dr Winstock said.

"Geographical dislocation from traditional dealing networks makes [Australia] more prone to novel drugs, which may carry higher risk than the drugs they seek to replace such as MDMA."

Surveyed Australians paid more for cocaine than any other country, spending about $321 a gram, which was slightly more than New Zealanders reported but almost double the next most expensive country.

It was cheapest in Colombia, with a local price of $5.26 per gram.

The typical Australian LSD user was 20 when they first tried the drug, in their own country, at home with friends. They mostly took tabs, for which they paid $19 each.

They were a little older, around 22, when they first tried magic mushrooms, which they usually ate whole rather than in other food.

Most people said an important motivation in experimenting with psychedelics was curiosity, but a large majority also said they wanted to expand their minds, learn more about themselves and deepen their understanding of the world.

Dr Winstock, an addiction psychiatrist who advocates education rather than prohibition when it comes to drug policy, said if people were going to use drugs, they should test drugs such as mushrooms and ecstasy and gradually increase the dose once they felt the effects, to avoid overdose.

"In a world dominated by fake news and where policies remain immune to the evidence - facts are more important than ever," Dr Winstock said.

"While drugs always carry some risk of harm - how you choose to use is the difference only you can make.

"There are so many chances here for enlightened policies that treat people who use drugs as adults. Honest conversations are easier to support than law change."