Tronica said:
I think the kinds of people that were psychonauts in their approach, really interested in how drugs worked and of course how best to use them with the least harm possible
I've not been around much lately to give my 2 cents regarding the issues with traffic (lack thereof) in AusDD - but that sentence rings true for me personally.
I think another aspect which is uniquely Australian (or Australiasian) is the lack of new drug topics that arise locally.
From what i can see, we've not really had any popular new drugs come onto the market, or new trends in how things are being used.
Since the MDMA drought of a few years ago, there haven't been a lot of stories that have nurtured discussion, brought members back to the site or attracted new members looking for (or offering) information.
If we compare AusDD to EADD (European and African Drug Discussion) - both are suffering from a lack of traffic, but EADD has, in the last few years, had several events/topics that have increased interest in EADD specifically, and BL generally;
- a large heroin drought of ~3-5 years ago in europe (if i recall the time frame correctly - may be a bit off) - led to lots of new members signing up, trying to work out what was going on
- a huge range of novel psychoactive substances that were readily (and domestically) available in the UK (which is where the majority of EADD posters are from) - brought many new members to the site, as BL was/is often the only place information on new drugs is available from
- the "cat and mouse" legislative game of governments prohibiting aforementioned NPSs - which again, brought attention to the site.
The "research chemicals" or "NPS" situation is very different in Australia, as our analogue laws act as a blanket ban on RCs - so there are not huge numbers of aussies using them, because they are more difficult to obtain here, due to tight customs restrictions and the lack of domestic sellers of research chems.
For the last 10 years or so, it seems fair to say that a lot of topics that could be covered by these regional subforums have already been discussed.
This means that lurkers are able to find the information they want (via google or the search function) - and are far less inclined to register an account and start a new thread.
Since the UK has introduced similar blanket-bans of these new psychoactive drugs, traffic in EADD has dropped dramatically. There are numerous theories tossed around about the reasons why that forum has become so quiet - but without wanting to rehash those conversations, i really think that the lack of anything new to talk about has a lot to do with it.
The Australian drug market has remained fairly unchanged for quite a few years now.
Without serious droughts, massive gluts, new drugs emerging into popularity or big changes in the "drug scene" (such as realistic hope of legislative reform [ie legalisation of cannabis for instance]) - i would be (
very pleasantly) surprised if things changed any time soon.
It's easy to overlook how important is as a reference for HR topics, based upon statistical analyses of posting trends. I've certainly known a lot of people who read bluelight a lot, but don't even consider contributing.
It would be great to see things pick up again, but it's difficult to make people want to use a forum. I think many of these sorts of challenges are more or less out of the control of anyone on bluelight, sadly.
