I had something similar happen on a forum I ran a while back. They’d flood the place with junk, and it felt like a never-ending game of whack-a-mole. If they’re all using Outlook emails, blocking that could help a bit, but you’d probably block some legit users too, which sucks. What worked for me was setting up specific questions during sign-up, like something only real users would know about the forum.
I also set filters for common spam phrases so their posts wouldn’t even show up
On the cannabis side, I’ve noticed conversations go smoother when they’re about the culture or cool gear instead of gummies or whatever. If people are into that, stuff like this
https://www.smokeday.com/bongs-water-pi ... bongs.html can shift the vibe to something more relaxed and fun.