The Origins of Bluelight

Beginning in 1997, there was a small message board hosted on bluelight.net called the MDMA Clearinghouse. The Clearinghouse was a side project for the owner of a design company called Bluelight Designs in West Palm Beach, Florida. The message board could only hold a few threads before they scrolled off the board and could not be retrieved.

Nevertheless, a small but dedicated number of people were regular participants and it felt like a close community. Someone suggested that a more permanent home be created so the message board could be stable and the content could be better managed.

The New Bluelight was created in May 1999 as a new home for the MDMA Clearinghouse participants. The "bluelight.nu" domain was registered in June 1999. Once the technical details were finalized, "The New Bluelight" opened for business and most of the crowd from MDMA Clearinghouse migrated to the new forums.

At least two different kinds of message board software (DCForum and wwwboard.cgi) were used between May 1999 and October 1999. There are no posts remaining from that time period. "The New Bluelight" changed software again in October 1999 and has operated continuously ever since then. From that time, Bluelight has grown from a small underground forum to one of the largest message boards of all time.

At some point the MDMA Clearinghouse collapsed and disappeared, although historic screen shots of the front page are still available through . While there have been many changes, Bluelight is still maintained by volunteers and a strong community spirit continues to evolve.

In October of 2005 the domain was switched to "bluelight.ru". In January of 2014, the domain switched to "bluelight.org".

Bluelight Timeline

• See The origins of Bluelight for pre-October 1999 information
• Original forum - Bluelight Discussion (closed January 2000)
• Original forum - Pill Reports (closed November 1999)
• Original forum - Announcements & Feedback (split into Announcements and Support forums in September 2003)
• Original forum - Events (closed September 2000)
• Original forum - Tripping Music, Picture (now known as Music & DJ's)
• October/November 1999 - New To Ecstasy (now known as Drug Basics)
• October/November 1999 - Chillout Room (closed July 2000)
• October/November 1999 - European Drug Discussion
• November 1999 - Australian Drug Discussion
• November 1999 - Words
•  ??? - Bluelight Discussion (now known as Ecstasy Discussion)
•  ??? - North & South America Drug Discussion
• March 2000 - Pill Testing
• March 2000 - Medical Q&A (now known as Health Q&A)
• April 2000 - Australian Events
• May 2000 - Media & Busts (now known as Drugs in the Media)
• May 2000 - Bluelight Social (now known as The Lounge)
• May 2000 - Other Drugs
• Summer 2000 - USA Northeast Events
• Summer 2000 - USA Southeast Events
• Summer 2000 - USA Central Events (now known as USA Midwest Events)
• Summer 2000 - Latin America Events
• Summer 2000 - USA West Events
• Summer 2000 - Canada Events
• Summer 2000 - European Events
• October 2000 - Australian Social
• October 2000 - Trip Reports
• October 2000 - Spirituality & Personal Philosophy (now known as Thought & Awareness)
• December 2000 - National Events (closed November 2001)
• February 2001 - Bluelight goes black for the first time in memory of those we've lost.
• May 2001 - USA Southwest Events (closed June 2003)
• May 2001 - The Dark Side
• August 2001 - Psychedelic Drugs
• September 2001 - US Attacks (closed October 2001)
• October 2001 - Current Events & Politics
• November 2001 - Sex, Love and Relationships
• November 2001 - Legal Q&A
• November 2001 - Other European Languages (later known as Other Languages, now closed)
• December 2001 - Visual and Performing Arts (closed November 2003)
• December 2001 - News (now known as The Front Page)
• December 2001 - Life (now known as Second Opinion)
• December 2002 - Drug Culture
• January 2002 - VPA Portfolio (closed November 2003)
• January 2003 - Links Database (now closed)
• July 2003 - Best of Bluelight
• July 2003 - Journals (now known as Blogs)
• July 2003 - Gallery
• October 2003 - Cannabis Discusison
• October 2003 - Bluelight Shrine
• November 2003 - Film and Television
• November 2003 - Testing Grounds
• January 2004 - New Member Introductions
• January 2004 Life becomes Second Opinion
• March 2004 - Steroid Discussion
• October 2005 - Major upgrade. Site transfers from 'bluelight.nu' to to 'bluelight.ru'
• February 2008 - Death of the site's benefactor, xtcxtc. Bluelight becomes self-funding via member donations
• September 2008 - site upgrades to vBulletin 3.7, with some hiccups
• December 2008 - merger of Australian Events into Australian Drug Discussion
• January 2009 - Bluelight funding push successfully raises one year's hosting fees in the space of three months
• July 2009 - planned 10 year anniversary meetup in Amsterdam
• July 2011 - Major upgrade to 4.1.4
• May 2012 - Minor upgrade to 4.1.12
• March 2013 - Recovery forums created from the increasingly-popular "Dark Side" forum.
• June 2013 - Research Portal launched.
• June 2013 - MAPS forum launched as a partnership.
• January 2014 - Major upgrade. Site transfers from 'bluelight.ru' to to 'bluelight.org'
• September 2016 - The Lounge is suspended, then rebooted as Social
• January 2017 - Second Opinion becomes Life Advice & Visual Arts
• March 2017 - Vaping Discussion and Cannabis Vaping Discussion forums are closed with their content being spread to Basic Drug Discussion, Other Drugs, and Cannabis Discussion
• June 2017 - Support is renamed to Site Technical Help
• September 2018 - Bluelight closes the the BL Wiki project
• April 2019 - Major upgrade.  Site transfers from running on vBulletin to Xenforo software
• June 2019 - BLOGS are brought back on the new software
• June 2019 - All 'Archive' sub-forums are merged back into their parent forums
• August 2018 - Mephedrone Research merged into Drug Studies
• August 2018 - Electronic Music Discussion and Non-Electronic Discussion were merged as Music Discussion
• August 2018 - Education & Careers was merged into Life Advice and Visual Arts.
• September 2018 - North and South American Drug Discussion had the regional sub-forums combined into the parent.
• November 2018 - Removed Homeless, Anonymous, and Testing Grounds forums
• November 2018 - Harm Reduction Workshop (previously closed) and BL WIki forum have been moved to the Bluelight History grouping
• November 2018 - New Member Introductions grouped with Announcements, Supprt and Technical Help.
• November 2018 - MAPS sub-forums of MAPS Discussion, Clinical Pschedelic Research & Medicine, Psychedelic Harm Reduction were merged into the parent MAPS forum.
• December 2018 - Pillreports sub-forums of Pill Testing Q&A and Pillreports Discussion were merged into the parent Pillrports forum.  Pillreports was then placed in the Focus Forum group.
• January 2019 - Basic Drug Discussion placed in the group with New Member Introductions, Announcements, and Site Technical Help with the expectation this would be the first forum grouping for new members.
• January 2019 - To get better focus on recovery discussions, forums were re-grouped to:
  • Drug Experiences
    • Trip Reports
    • Drug Culture
    • European and Africa Drug Discussion
    • Australian Drug Discussion
    • North and South American Drug Discussion
  • Media, Science & Research
    • Neuroscience & Pharmacology
    • Drugs in the Media
    • MAPS
    • Drug Studies
  • Addiction and Recovery
    • Health & Recovery (was two separate forums)
    • Mental Health
    • The Dark Side
• February 2019 - Science & Technology merged into Current Events, Politics, and Science
• February 2022: The official Bluelight Discord chat server is launched.
• February 2022: 'Drugs in the Media' is rebranded with some rule changes into 'Drug Policy & Media Coverage'.
• April 2022: 'Current Events, Politics, and Science' is split back up into three subforums - 'Current Events & Politics', 'Science & Technology', and 'The Dive'.
• August 2022: The official Bluelight subreddit r/bluelight is launched.
• September 2022: The Mental Health forum is merged back into The Dark Side, MAPS sub forum is moved to Archives.
• December 2023: The Australian charity Bluelight Communities Ltd resolved to assume the governance of Bluelight's community platforms.
• March 2024: Bluelight's new branding and front page were launched, including new article content on drug and harm reduction topics.