I think what has happened is that the greater number of new members are older adults from countries outside the UK/Europe here to try and sell sexual services or to get drugs (whilst the first might be tolerated more provided its legal, the second is still disallowed as it endangers the individuals (even more than it would this site) especially given the monitoring/surveillance capabilities of the USA and UK).
A lot of younger people and even adults on mobile connections will not be able to access .org in the UK with default settings on mobile broadband on any PAYG device unless they provide valid age ID.
This as well as workplace net usage monitoring and fears about more widespread surveillance (as much by commercial companies as the feds, and even young peoples own friends) are also deterring more intelligent younger drug users from posting on sites like this or anywhere else; leaving only our age group who have “nothing to lose” – as they either are unemployed / unwell enough not to be capable of work anyway or in jobs where they are valued enough by employers to be able to voice some of their personal opinions in public without any comeback (even then they must be careful as its relatively easy for a determined individual citizen to track someone down from public internet posts without needing any kind of privileged access to data or doing any illegal/unlawful hacking).
Last time I took psychedelics of any sort was about 4/5 years ago – not because I had any bad experiences but because the time needed for rest and recovery is too long. That said about 90% of all the older electronics boffins in this area I have chatted to either online or in person have had some experience of counterculture and psychedelic drugs (and many clearly have indulged at least once) and have liberal views about them but are worried about excessive use as in the 60s/70s a lot of organisations lost good engineers who became acid casualties.
One chap who once worked for a very large tech company here had fairly recently got stoned with his middle aged hippy friends in the basement of his house, playing acoustic guitars and drums) and for some reason actually decided to put all the electricity off in the house (as the service head, incomer and circuit breakers are often situated in the basement in older houses round here) and him and his mates started howling like dogs in the darkness. He is into many new age type philosophies and environmentalism so it would not be that odd behaviour for him, other than the family didn’t own a dog (its perfectly acceptable worldwide to howl with your pet dog and the source of many amusing youtube videos).
He was later berated for this activity by his teenage sons, as they had been trying to do their homework and exam revision which is hard to do when there is no light and the computers have abruptly gone off – this is how much attitudes have changed in recent times…
