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Comment by ericmcer | Hacker News Reader

I don't even think many devs are 'stoners' in the sense of using marijuana daily. I don't think you could code at a high level if you were actually smoking weed every day, but it just feels invasive for a job to tell me I can NEVER touch it and they will monitor me to check.

I am not a huge fan of alcohol, but if a job told me I could never drink again and they will test me to see if I have been drinking it would feel super invasive and be a huge turn off.

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> I don’t think you could code at a high level if you were actually smoking weed every day

Ah, but on the contrary, I can confirm, based on what I consider a “high level” of coding, that some people cannot code without smoking weed every day. I can also assure you that many, many devs are daily users, quality of code output not withstanding.

It probably affects everyone a little differently, I know if I start smoking every day my brain is noticeably slower. I can still get by but I cannot visualize and store as much code in my mind at one time.

Adversely tons of sleep, creatine and coffee seem to expand my context and I can hold a lot more simultaneously.

Life is also not about being the best programmer though, so I would definitely trade ability for comfort if weed was offering that.

I think you'd be surprised. I smoke pretty much every day, at least. That said, only in the evening when I'm done work and I'm not exactly programming control systems for SpaceX or whatever.

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