A Survey of Programmers' Cannabis Usage, Perception, and Motivation | Hacker News Reader

A Survey of Programmers' Cannabis Usage, Perception, and Motivation

arxiv.org

Anecdotal but I'm a "programmer" at BigTech™ and smoke all day every day, and at this point I can't tell if it helps me or hinders me, but when you smoke all the time, most of these stories you are hearing about in the comments don't happen. At this point in my life, it's just a little "pick me up". It's by no means a micro dose as I probably smoke a gram or 2 a day. But when you live high it's a different kind of beast. I'll probably stop one day, but at the moment I don't see a reason to. Maybe it helps, maybe it doesn't, but I like being high and at this point I am addicted for sure anyway.

It's just lovely to hear how honest you are about your "situation". I enjoy smoking occasionally. I would say that sometimes I dismiss my thoughts too quickly when I'm sober, and rarely engage in thought process about particular details too intensively when I'm a bit off the ground. Otherwise it's great no matter what's being done, just need to be active.

Thanks, hopefully I am being honest with myself. I think weed can be very different for different people. Also it's not really mentioned here but Sativa and Indica strains also can make a difference as well as the THC % and method of consumption. I vape half a bowl from my Pax 3, I am in Canada so it's legal and we have THC % labels, I typically go for 25%+ which is not the "cheap stuff". I'd say if someone smoked my stuff with me at 9 AM, who doesn't normally smoke, it would probably knock them out for a few hours. But for me, it's like booting up in the morning. Nobody has ever mentioned or asked if I am high because I am more "normal" high than sober. Although I haven't been "sober" (clean for 4+ weeks) in many years, so I admit I have slightly lost perspective. It also has other effects on my life, such as my total loss of recalling my dreams, although I can tell they still occur, I just can't recall them at all.

You sound very much like me. Totally happy with my usage, and a chronic user that smokes 2-3 times per day reaching about a gram. It helps with empathy, it helps with creative flow, it helps with many things, but there are downsides of course. From August to December I took a break and it was immensely useful for perspective and for resetting my brain. My dreams were extremely vivid and rich, and going back to smoking was like rediscovering pot when I was 16. T breaks are indeed the key as GP pointed out.

Not going to bed stoned should be a recommended best practice in my opinion, especially given all the research supporting the fact that sleep is impaired by Cannabis much the same way as alcohol.

So many people claim that Cannabis helps them sleep but the science just doesn’t support that idea.

Citations? From what I know cannabis can give you really good "deep sleep." Which is just as good as REM sleep.

I definitely agree that cannabinoids mess the sleep processes, but without cannabinoids at night (even during periods when I'm not adapted to them) I wake up easily 6+ times during the night just to urinate. Its a horrible experience that's easily solved with cannabinoids, but there are likely other solutions to whatever is actually causing the problem. I do stop or slow my water intake a while before bed but this doesn't seem to matter.

Also it should be noted that this is not the primary reason for my cannabinoid use.

It is possible that cannabinoids help with this because it changes the way you breathe - deeper and more active breaths in lower part of the stomach will help to relax bladder and the urge will be much softer. Abs training may help as well like knee raises while hanging on a bar.

It takes weeks after I stop smoking weed for me to start remembering my dreams again. I don't doubt that there are other effects on sleep from acute smoking around bed time. But for me, the loss of REM sleep is definitely mainly a function of cannabanoid tolerance.

After many years of on and off heavy smoking, I would say that the best best practice is actually not smoking weed every day. I think there are some amazing benefits to weed, but for me they all but disappear with enough tolerance.

I’ll take slightly impaired sleep over morbid nightmares and waking up multiple times a night from dying in them.

Yeah the body quickly develops a tolerance when cannabis is used chronically. In stoner culture people talk about taking “T” breaks for this reason. Other people switch strains to try mitigating the effect.

Smoking a gram or two would be enough to get a newbie high as hell for the entire day. For chronic users it’s more like a cup of coffee that wakes you up for the day. And in that respect, many chronic stoners are forever chasing that feeling of the first time they got high. You can feel that way again, just take a break!

Haha ya I haven't taken a T break in years, but you are right that when I did and I finally smoked again, it was like remembering why I smoke in the first place. I am at a point in my life where I have kinda stopped trying to have self control in this regard and just made it part of my life. I'm 36 now and had never smoked weed until a trip to Amsterdam when I was 25. I get something from smoking, but it's muted for sure now-a-days with my tolerance, and I need to smoke the strong stuff.

Personally, I much prefer the feeling of a THC high when I have a high tolerance. Been a daily smoker for 15+ years (with occasional breaks for other reasons) and one single toke still works wonders, and I never take more than a single puff in a session.

Smoking some potent bud after a long break can be unpleasant, like taking big cup of coffee having no tolerance to caffeine. More likely to experience the negatives like anxiety, paranoia and confusion. The only upsides of low THC tolerance are some more intense spells of nonsensical laughter and things like “munchies” which were novel and fun things as a kid experimenting with a group of friends.

But that is quite different from what I enjoy most about MJ as an adult, which is more akin to adult enjoyment of caffeine. A morning cup of black coffee feels great because I have a tolerance, not despite it.

I'm in a similar situation where I use cannabinoids basically 24/7. But for me I don't like inhalation anymore because it spikes the blood concentration too far and too fast for my liking. Edibles not only provide a more consistent and long lasting effect, but also saves money if you make your own from the flower you would have smoked. Part of this is because a similar inhaled dose compare to eaten, the eaten dose will last longer and be slightly more efficacious due to first pass metabolism.

Interesting. That describes me for the past 20 years. But, I am going to turn 60 next year, and have decided that age 60-90 (God willing) will be different than age 30-60. Key in that is that I have returned to my original weed habits prior to age 30: none until evening time. So far, I'm _really_ liking the change. I still like weed, but I'm not allowing it (or anything) to have that much importance to me, and minimizing false 'dependencies' feels very refreshing.

Yeah, I've gone for 1-2 months long period of everyday, to cold turkey and haven't found much issues(even when going cold turkey, like no jonesing).

How do you define being addicted to it, what is your benchmark?

The general benchmark for an addiction is whether or not the substance use interferes or causes issues in other parts of your life. Like continuing tobuse in the face of damaging side effects or damaging effects on one's interpersonal relationships.

> Maybe it helps, maybe it doesn't, but I like being high and at this point I am addicted for sure anyway.

I smoked occasionally since my 20's and by occasionally i mean 3-4 times a year if even. then around 35 I started smoking on my own and it went from a puff or two at 9pm to help sleep to 3-4 j's a day. Like you I cant tell if it does anything any more. Likely I'm just giving myself lung cancer. And I too enjoy being intoxicated. my family is full of addiction so it figures.

Bottom line is YMMV and be careful with self medicating.

I've been a heavy, 1 oz. of Indica a week smoker for decades, while being an extremely productive lead and principal software engineer on dozens of highly visible tech products. I am part of a heavy smoking, high tech collective of startup and career research individuals from companies people use everyday. I start my day with a combination of THC and caffeine, which folds into a deep work and research focus lasting the entire day. Over time, fellow high tech heavy smokers have identified one another, forming a moderately secret heavy smokers network that support one another in non-legal places, sometimes meet at big conventions, or we realize a number of us are at an airport at the same time and all meet in the smoker's den.

Wow an ounce per week is such a heavy intake, have you noticed any negative impacts for example to your lungs or teeth?

Do you prefer smoking over edibles because of the instant rush versus a slow ramp up?

Have you considered d switching to vaping? It's so much more efficient that you'd likely only use 1/2 oz, or maybe even 1/3 oz.

The efficiency, the dosage limitation and convenience is amazing, and its been a a few months when I smoked a joint. But I still find the joint to be better experience, not sure why, maybe the trace amounts of CBD.

smoking always trumps dry vape, oil, wax, and edibles. I've found joints to be the easiest but least efficient way to smoke (its hard to charge a smoker with paraphernalia for having papers if you also carry a bag of tobacco). bowls are better but have to be cleaned. bongs and bubblers are top dog but they are bulky and even harder to clean than bowls.

Do you also smoke tobacco or vape nicotine juice?

Maybe you know me, you can check my profile, I've been in the "in" side of like... three? or maybe four? of this super-secret techie psychedelic ultra select clubs even involving VPs of unicorns and directors of tech companies and most of the heavy indica smokers also smoke nicotine like, a lot. Weed and tobacco are a very different thing as just smoking weed, on some cultures that smoke weed heavily like Rastas that's the more common method, like in a spliff or a blunt.

If you don't vape nicotine can I out of curiosity ask about your other super-secret habits? Because in my super secret extracurricular experience in this circles multiple time per year LSD trips and occasional cocaine binges are not unusual and both LSD and cocaine probably effect glutamate receptors in ways that I theorize help with the brain fog or fatigue that for some people regular weed use causes.

Sounds like a cool group, where do you meet? :-) Need the deets. Also I am a Sativa man myself, but caffeine indeed, gotta stack those chemicals.

The hippie speedball makes me ultra-productive, but unfortunately employers (well, mine) are probably not cool with me being high on Zoom calls. :/

I just wanted to chime in and say that, for some people, THC+caffeine in the right settings can give you a nice hyper-focus. I wish I could use the combo more often.

Just out of curiosity, why THC + caffeine? I am a regular coffee drinker, but never smoked at the same time.

Is it the caffeine gives you focus, but the THC removes the jitters and antsy-ness that goes along with it?

These people are heavy smokers that probably developed a functional habit (they sort of need the hit to feel normal).

You won’t magically get the benefits being espoused, if that’s what you’re thinking.

Very much this. If you're looking at it from a pure productivity standpoint and want to try it out, and aren't a regular toker - don't - because you'll just get really baked. :P

Of course you're right - but drugs usually do deliver the benefits espoused (if often at a Faustian price). Your two statements are a shade oxymoronic.

Addictive habits form suddenly, but not immediately. Every drug requires a period of optional, regular, and increasing use before dependency develops. (Some, like nicotine, can have rapid dependency onset. Others take 6 or more months of intermittent use before withdrawal threatens).

This non-dependent yet regular use is usually driven by genuine (subjective) benefit to the user - euphoria or focus, amnesia or nescience, etc.

This is the essence of the word "drug": if inactive we say supplement, snake oil, homeopathic, etc.

Pharmacology _is_ somewhat magic - absurdly improbable in a way reality, and human endeavor, often is (see: organ transplants, the bioengineered mutant grass known as maize/corn).

I've always assumed it to be that the caffeine keeps the user more energetic and alert than they would be otherwise.

The key part is you can't get too high. You just need a little bit, along with some good coffee. Unless if you're a heavy smoker and then you probably already know what you're doing.

I don't think this works for everyone but THC can help me focus in small amounts. The coffee (caffeine) is just there to keep you energized and going. I will also drink lots of water along with it. For me, caffeine actually makes me less focuses and more prone to anxiety, so it's for more of an energy kick.

Further down the this thread, there's mention of making you "dumber." Yes, that can happen if you take too much. I have messed up trying this method before on a weekend and wasn't able to figure out my own code so I just relaxed for a bit and came back later.

I like to say it's akin to some sort of alchemy. Need to find the right mixture for you and environment to work in.

The caffeine gives you focus and the energy to counteract whatever lassitude comes with the cannabis, and the cannabis provides easier access to flow state and the tendency for thoughts to wander in what can often be unexpectedly productive directions.

Or so I assume, at any rate, based on knowledge of each drug's action in isolation. I had a heavy cannabis habit back ages ago, and kicking it cold was really one of the best decisions I've ever made - of all else in my recollection, the only thing comparable in terms of immediate cognitive and emotional improvement has been beginning APAP treatment for obstructive sleep apnea. Given that I'd be very wary of self-reports of the benefits of heavy cannabis use - after all, I thought for a long time it was helping me, too! - but I suppose I can see why folks who do choose to indulge might choose also to pair cannabis with coffee.

I haven't ever been high during work hours, but I have tried to program while high. I tunnel vision too hard to get things done. I find it impossible to debug or think about broad solutions. I also am under the suspicion that I'm dumber when high.

I suspect the stoner coders are the exact opposite, and would experience similar effects when sober.

Maybe. This sounds exactly like addiction to me.

Ever vaporized or tincture/small edible instead of smoke?

Yes. Though I do not smoke regularly and it has been probably a year or more since I smoked, even though it is legal in my state.

Any notable differences?

and are we talking vape pens, or vaporizing ground cannabis?

Heh, not having heard the term hippie speedball before, I would have assumed weed and nitrous (hippie crack), not caffeine.

Adding caffeine to thc only gives me a lot of anxiety and a sense of generalized dread, honestly. It leaves me unable to sit down and focus on anything, I have to get up and pace around.

Show your LinkedIn profile.

I can't tell whether the parent comment was written as parody or while the author was high.

Whenever I'm drunk or high, I think of myself as an extremely productive lead and principal software engineer, MMA champion and F1 pilot. /s

Sounds more like an idea you have for a movie than reality

These exist.

Same here in terms of use, except sativa instead of indica, and I've only found one other person like me in my career.

Smoking definitely helps me reach a deep state of focus but unfortunately it's fairly brittle (cars idling nearby, other subtle things can be really distracting) and requires a long period of stage-in if I haven't worked on something for a while (I have little long-term memory for code details).

I got my three kids desks for christmas. Put them down to bed for the night and smoke a little weed. I was shocked how I couldn’t follow ikea desk instructions. Got frustrated and decided to try again sober. I was super shocked the next day how easy it was to follow when sober.

I’ve experienced this. Generally following ikea step by step style directions is just boring af when high and my mind wonders. But if I put that same energy towards something more creative I can really lock in. Although, sometimes my brilliant creative ideas are complete garbage when seen through sober eyes.

same. complex logical thinking is quite hard. but feeling is great. listening high to classical sound sometimes opens the story, the memory or the feelings the creator wanted to transport. for example.

so, a day in remote-meetings can be quite nice high, a complex migration hardly..

€dit: could we pair our experiences with our "handed"-style? i'm strongly lefthanded. i have a theory, with left handeds the possibility is higher to the "logical stuff does not work anymore" component than for righthandeds

I'm a prolific consumer of THC and have done considerable professional and personal work to a good quality under the influence. I suspect tolerance and dosage can lead to a variety of experiences.

For me I find that pot reduces background noise in my mind that would otherwise prevent me from becoming extremely focused.

When I'm high I can follow the instructions so hard that I won't notice a person standing next to me addressing me by name.

I'm a daily consumer (and right handed FWIW) and while I can usually focus on decently complex tasks unless I'm really stoned I definitely notice an effect on like abstract/symbolic reasoning type stuff. I notice it with video games especially. I was playing a lot of Factorio earlier this year and there's some stuff great to do high, like drive around and clear area to expand your base, but other stuff like planning/designing blueprints is too much. I think anything where you've kind of decided what you're going to do and just need to go execute on it is nice but when you're doing stuff that's requiring active logical decision-making it's tough.

On a similar note, I see a clear difference in Baba Is You[0] where sober me can follow longer chains of reasoning, but high me can think of more unexpected approaches.

0: Very good logic game on steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/736260/Baba_Is_You/

Drugs significantly alter cognitive processes and perceptions. I know that reads like a duh comment because that's literally why people take them, but it's amazing how frequently drugs users forget that the drugs alter their perceptions of how the drug is impacting their lives.

I've fortunately only had a few of my friends succumb to addictions, but it was surreal to watch them remain convinced that the drugs (including alcohol) were actually helping their performance, relationships, and productivity while everyone around them could clearly see that the opposite was happening.

One of the most striking examples is benzodiazepine abuse. Benzos famously mislead users into a false sense of sobriety even when they may be so inebriated that they struggle to accomplish basic tasks.

Within the tech scene, I've also noticed this with LSD microdosing. The few people I know who (openly) tried it were convinced they were smarter and more productive while microdosing, but it was objectively clear to everyone else that they were thinking more slowly, generally more confused, making more mistakes, and so on. The difference is that the drug convinced them that everything they accomplished was a wonderful achievement that made them happy, which led them to perceptions that they were accomplishing more on those days.

I see similar trends in acquaintances with excessive marijuana habits: A general belief that the drug is helping them do more of the things they want to do, but they're clearly doing very little on the days they smoke. Obvious from the outside, hard to see from the inside when your perceptions are being bent to extremes.

I think that people thinking that mind altering substances cannot be a useful tool should keep an open mind about it and let those people who are getting real results out of it keep doing their thing. And yes these people do exist. They are not going to be too open about it because of how taboo it is.

It’s well known that many of the greatest rock bands, highly productive mathematicians like Paul Erdos and comedians like George Carlin found great benefits in the disciplined use of mind altering substances. Not the addictive side which he regretted but the occasional one as a creative boost. Steve Jobs swore that it changed him. Not that it was perfect but he himself claimed it played a pivotal role in shaping him into the unique person that he was.

There are peer reviewed studies that show that psychedelics are among the most effective tools for treating depression. ADHD medication is prescribed quite often today and it’s a game changer for many people.

This is not without its dangers so proceed with caution and have other people in your life to check on you often. But let’s not deny the enormous power.

Why should some stimulants like caffeine or alcohol be permitted for responsible use while others have to be kept away ? Many of them are less addictive than either.

And besides far beyond any argument about utility it’s also one about aesthetics and spirituality. It’s an entire new dimension to the human experience.

If you don’t have a good track record of practicing moderation then stay away.

That may be the case but we should also be careful to not assume that people under the influence are able to accurately evaluate its impact on their performance. Nor should we extrapolate on the general impact based on the experiences of some. Not everyone smoking that jazz cabbage is a Steve Jobs. And there’s no guarantee that the change it has is good for that person (eg triggering some latent susceptibility to schizophrenia as we know LSD can do from the MK Ultra experiments)

I do like the sound of "jazz cabbage", but I think you're using it derisively and possibly with a tinge of racism. And that makes me sad.

I got it from Fake Doctors, Real Friends. I think the perception of derision/racism is solely on your end.

Paul Erdos took uppers, specifically Ritalin and caffeine, IIRC. Carlin was pretty vocal about the majorly negative impacts of drug abuse on his life and even went to rehab.

Prior discussion on Erdos, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2497420

Carlin made a very clear exception for marijuana for his creative work.

https://youtu.be/nCGGWeD_EJk?t=6m50s

I understand the comment thread you are responding to is lumping many psychoactive substances together, but the authors of the posted study were careful to distinguish this.

Yes exactly.

> highly productive mathematicians like Paul Erdos

I think Paul Erdos' stimulant usage has been blown out of proportion. According to his biography, he took "10 to 20 milligrams of Benzedrine or Ritalin" ( https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/ho... ) which is, believe it or not, lower than a lot of people's commonly prescribed ADHD doses today. Erdos also published a lot of his best works before taking up non-caffeine stimulants, so it wasn't exactly the driving force behind his productivity.

Anyone using Erdos to justify an excessive or non-prescribed/non-medical stimulant habit has misunderstood the history.

> Steve Jobs swore that it changed him.

Steve Jobs was also famously terrible to everyone around him and died prematurely because he firmly believed he could cure pancreatic cancer with an all-fruit diet. Which of his properties are we to ascribe to the mind-altering drugs and which are we to overlook?

Again, using Steve Jobs to justify drug consumption (or anything, really) is missing the point that he was a unique person.

Jobs also took acid because he was in the generation where it was commonplace. Gates also did it, too.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bill-gates-once-coyly-defende...

And that generation was a powerhouse of business, innovation and culture. Counter culture laid the foundation for what we now call Silicon Valley.

Yeah, but that doesn't mean they were high when they were working.

Yeah, but they were when thinking about what to work on.

Well actually https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Dormouse_Said

“ Colleagues worried that Erdős might have become addicted. In 1979, he accepted a $500 bet from his friend Ronald Graham. Graham challenged Erdős to abstain from speed for 30 days. Erdős met the challenge, but his output sank dramatically. Erdős felt the progress of mathematics had been held up by a stupid wager. In an article by Paul Hoffman published in November 1987, Atlantic Monthly profiled Erdős and discussed his Benzedrine habit. Erdős liked the article, “…except for one thing…You shouldn’t have mentioned the stuff about Benzedrine. It’s not that you got it wrong. It’s just that I don’t want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics to think that they have to take drugs to succeed.”

The truth is far more nuanced. Like I said no one will openly admit to this as it sets a risky example for others.

I'm sure any addicted person would perform very poorly when undergoing 30 days of withdrawal. I know when I withdraw from caffeine, the next few days are hopelessly unproductive.

Sure but what if I decided to ban you from using caffeine and throw you in jail because it’s addictive ?

Anecdotally, I was a daily cannabis smoker for many years, had to quit about 5 months ago and have noticed persistently decreased focus and productivity since then.

My experience with LSD in my 20s was about as far from "micro" dosing as you can get. With that in mind, I found that while I did have some truly profound experiences, most often it was more along the lines of wasting time having fun. And things that seemed really deep while tripping were obviously and unambiguously superficial afterwards.

From various experimentations over the years, the only drugs that make a real positive difference in my cognitive function are caffeine (in large doses) and alcohol (in small to moderate doses).

From my experience and some of the comments, it seems like a common thread is that weed is good for "clean the garage" tasks - not cognitively challenging but tedious, something you'd like to be distracted from - and not good for reading and retaining new information.

In programming terms, I think it's great for refactoring, or let's say working through a bunch of corner cases on some weird business data you have to parse, and terrible for learning a new framework or implementing something new you where you need to read several articles about something and combine them into a coherent plan.

Hard disagree, at least for me. I’ve tried doing lots of different programming tasks and they all take longer. Now it might not be as annoying to do the refactor but it takes more time since I lose track or get distracted. Not sure about the quality of the code either since it’s hard to measure objectively when you’re making mistakes in the moment.

Maybe creative technical problem solving it has a benefit. However, from listening to interviews from successful comedians, there are many that express that worry about not being funny off weed, and it rarely if ever works out that way so I’m the “it likely has no to mild negative effect” on most (but not necessarily all) creative problem solving

I'm not surprised, I think it's just extremely subjective. I mean, I find it extremely hard to focus on a programming task if there's music playing, but I know people who listen to music all day while they work.

I can't even begin to program under the influence of alcohol. Almost brain dead in that regard.

Generally agree with this, with one specific addition:

Spend some sober hours wrapping my head around some new concept (e.g. programming pattern/paradigm or theory topic) or just reading a large codebase for the first time. At a certain point, my brain is just “done”. Then a small toke of some good weed with the intention of checking out and relaxing. More often than not, the effect is the opposite: the complex material i had spent the previous hours analyzing starts to piece itself together in new ways and my energy and interest in the task is restored to 100%.

While it may not be the right time to hammer out a complete implementation, it has often assisted in that crucial step of “getting it”. This happened for me often with topics that require a new perspective e.g. vector calculus and functional programming patterns

Edit: for reference, I am a heavy user (typically on 2+ doses/day), with occasional long breaks of weeks/months. I believe “tolerance” plays the dominant role in programmers’ experience with this. After a month long break, there is NO way I’m able or interested to work with complex systems of any sort when under the influence.

This fits mwith my experience. When my tasks are defined and are left only to implement I can plow through a lot of work.

If I have to develop (or much worse, alter) abstractions that make use of generics and OOP I do not feel productive at all. I get very confused, easily. (Though I often power through it just fine)

I do not smoke during business hours while working on client systems however, that does not sound appealing at all.

I have used cannabis extensively on personal projects for inspiration and to make easy but mundane programming tasks interesting for motivation. Refctoring is very boring sometimes, and getting high can keep you focused on how nice it will be to complete it and get to the end result. I often am able to uncover a bit of fun in the refactoring process after smoking.

My personal projects benefit from a pattern of: program for an hour or two (completely engrossed), short video game battle or two, smoke up a bit, program...repeat. I can chew through a tremendous amount of work in a five hours (measured by git commits and the complexity within those commits) that would easily take me weeks in a corporate setting. The pattern or rythum triggers "flow" consistently.

This is interesting, I wish it were that easy for me. Do you do any prep work, i.e. "story planning" (presumably in a less formal way than you would at work)? I find that, for my side projects, I can do a lot of damage while high IFF I have a very clear idea of exactly how the feature should work; but if sober me hasn't worked out clear acceptance criteria for the thing I'm doing, either I daydream and don't actually get anything done, or I wind up doing something totally unrelated, like an opportunistic refactor of something irrelevant to what I sat down to work on.

It's hard to describe my design and planning approach. I have tried to enforce a structure like we do at work...epics...stories etc. Ends up slowing me down and wasting a bunch of time.

I know the domain very well, so it's like the SME or product owner who is also an experienced developer just cranking shit out. I work with a visual designer for the UI which lets me play around with different concepts very quickly. I just iterate very quickly in code and in the UI, expressing myself...it's more art than science.

I may plan to do something, and then sit down and get interested in a totally different feature...it is very important to do the thing that thrills me in the moment. It increases quality and ideation momentum.

You could also be... Tired.

I can't do much of anything that requires concentration once I put my three kids to bed. The nights that my wife is out give me a lot of sympathy for single parents.

(But I will admit that there are times that I've had to just wait until the effects wear off.)

That was the obvious explanation to me as well. A task was hard in the evening, before sleep, and easy in the morning, after sleep...

Must be the drugs.

I am super shocked by your apparent ignorance of such well-known effects from the drugs you're using. Especially at such a late stage in life, having multiple kids under your purview.

Maybe I'll just assume you were high when you wrote that comment.

It was my first time trying to build furniture while high. Not currently high.

Sometimes smoking completely makes me suck at programming. I can't get my thoughts into the text editor as code. Other times I work just as well as I would have sober.

Most of the time getting high is a good way to get ideas for what personal project to work on next.

For me weed is not really something that actively aids in problem-solving or brainstorming, but rather acts as more of a motivation booster. When it's 11pm and I have a handful of less-demanding tasks to slog through, that's where I've found weed to be a lot of help. It helps make otherwise routine tasks more engaging. It even gives me sufficient motivation to actively refactor and improve parts of codebase that I might've otherwise ignored or ticketed away in the backlog.

Why are you working at 11pm?

During the day I just kind of loaf around, answer questions on slack, practice music, work out, etc.

Late at night is the only time I can get any deep work done.

I am so glad to read this because I am just the same. Day time seems like there’s just too much other things to do, night time it’s quiet and dark and it feels cozy to sit at my desk, uninterrupted by slack messages or meetings and get long stretches of focus time.

We are legion...

I am double glad to read this. I am pretty much the same. I just cannot work when other people are around. I tend to end up helping them on some of their tasks and do my work when they all have left. The problem is that doing so gets work done , but you get a bit burny and your, if any, social life suffers.

I have since then, done the following, found a special zone/cabin and started to make a list when I go to this cabin. This has helped on tasks that I like to do (like designing and programming) but I still have to slog through other tasks (making presentations and writing pointless documents) in the late evenings.

The guide that helped me was this : https://adhdatwork.add.org/adhd-accommodation-guide/

FWIW, liking to work at night is s very popular thing.

11 pm - 2/3 am is the best time for me to get work done. Most people are asleep. News, slack/discord and emails aren't coming in. Hopefully the small tasks were already done earlier in the day, and the only thing left to do is focus. My only worry with this is that its just a cover for my procrastination.

Wow, I'm the exact same way. I basically never get anything done before 12 but I'm perfectly happy working until 10pm. I wish I could work earlier because it really disrupts my family life.

Why not block out a couple hours during the day where people can't interrupt? This was brought up many times in my last workplace and we found that we could cancel lots of meetings and magically the days became much more free.

I also never put slack on my phone, and use the snooze functionality.

Usually you can make the time if you really want to.

Why would I do this? What I’m doing works for me.

More free time? I mean is it understood that you're not working much during the day? Otherwise it sounds like you'd have to be "on" pretty much all the time.

Why do you care, and why is it important to the conversation? People work different hours. Some people choose to work those hours.

Because I was curious. Why do you care that I care?

I read it as accusational for working at an odd hour / after hour, so I was asking to see if that accusational tone was implied or just read into it by the reader. Why do you care why I care?

Wow, thanks for this viewpoint. It's cool how weed can have such opposite effects for different users. For me (and apparently for tons of other weed smokers given the "And then I got high" song), it is 180 the opposite - weed makes me completely useless.

Sorry if you have heard this before but you may have ADHD or something similar. I found myself in a similar pattern of using cannabis to motivate myself to do the more boring tasks that inevitably come up being a full time software engineer and after several months of therapy was diagnosed with ADHD.

FWIW, I find that if I have a boring task and attempt to use cannabis to power through it, half of the time I complete the task with vigor and then other half of the time I do literally anything else. So my story is as similar to yours as those saying that cannabis leads them to be anything but productive.

I tried getting help for ADHD years ago but found it very difficult to get help for an adult that is high functioning. I'm pretty sure I have it but all the diagnostics focus on young children. The office where I had evaluations was loaded with whacked out kids. They just don't see it as a problem compared to those kids and the diagnosis is heavily focused on childhood behavior and excludes adults. The doctor, who I struggled to find, was really disorganized and lost my case file and forgot about me after several visits. Total joke.

I have to keep self medicating I guess.

Talk to your primary care physician. Let them know you're struggling to focus and it's impacting your ability to function at work. Get a referral to a counselor and do a telemed appointment. Answer the handful of questions (truthfully). It's not like there's a series of tests for ADHD. It's just behaviors that are common to people with it.

Telemedicine is great for avoiding those whacked out kids. I was able to find a great therapist (who I have never met in real life) through a mental health startup made available to me by my employer.

Yes same for me. It makes it easy to push through tedious tasks with a little enjoyment.

I love smoking weed. I smoke pretty much every day. Just a little bit, a puff on the vape pen to get my groove going after work. I find it USELESS for problem solving or productivity, but hey: I don't need to be productive 24 hours a day. I just want something to take the edge off while I play a strategy game or fart around on a game prototype.

I NEVER do it during work or when I have to drive.

I started smoking weed when I was 16. I remember it was New Years day and the cool older kids from the nearby city took a liking to me and offered to smoke with me. We all got high, and it was extremely fun. Still friends with those people today. They all did quite well for themselves.

It was my rebellion growing up in a small town where there wasn't really much to rebel against. I had good parents and a good family. Little did I know my dad was also toking...

Then I went from my small town to the big city for college, and life got really hard. I didn't have the money to pay for weed anymore, and my mental health wasn't great due to all of the stress of college and work, so I stopped for around 6 years.

Then, about 3 years ago, I moved to a state where it as legal, and the first thing I did was buy some weed just to have the fun experience of purchasing it legally. And I smoked it. And I discovered something!

It wasn't just youthful rebellion, or following along with the cool kids, or anything like that. I actually really enjoy the feeling of being high! It makes me feel calm and relaxed.

And that is a good thing! Doing drugs is amoral[0]. There is this puritanical vein through US society that altering your state of mind, and making yourself feel good is a BAD thing. It even extends to coffee and caffeine sometimes.

But altering your state of mind is not inherently wrong! Clearly, it can sometimes be used as a crutch for avoiding other pain in your life. I am sure we have all seen it. But the same can be said of video games, and television, and even exercise when overdone. If it doesn't have any other effect on your life, doing a drug is fine.

- 0: Legal, not funding drug lords. I avoid illegal drugs for this reason.

> not funding drug lords. I avoid illegal drugs for this reason.

I hate to break it to you...

[Edit: it's best if I expand this comment. The people who currently sell "legal" weed whitewashed illegal operations and coordinated it with lawmakers to put them at the top. Chinese, oddly enough, play a big part at this, since we're on an anti-China bend right now it might be useful to know. This whole legal drug thing... no, it doesn't exist. Anyone thinking otherwise needs to get a wake up call. You're supporting massive drug lords that wear suits and work alongside law enforcement.]

Can you expand on this a bit more? I've never heard about this. Are you saying when I go down to my local dispensary that it's owned by China? Or that the local bud is not actually local?

A large portion of the grow ops are owned by Chinese groups. This is "common knowledge" in circles where people want to grow weed as a business, at scale, and scope out their competitors. This is their competition. The small local growers are not a competition anymore than your mom and pop business is competition to Amazon.

People find this surprising, but they've never stopped to ask themselves where did all that weed and infrastructure to grow it suddenly spring up from the moment it was legalized.

What are your thoughts on TikTok having more web traffic in 2021 than Google or Facebook?

What's wrong with a large portion of the grow ops being owned by Chinese people in the US?

It all depends. I knew a grower in Oregon. They got into growing to provide for chronic pain sufferers (frequently fibromyalgia) since it is more difficult to get prescription pain medication in the US than marijuana.

[citation needed]

You seem to be defining "drug lord" to be including even those that legally grow weed, then using that naming to say they're bad?

And the people who work at the farms are exploited pretty terribly as well.

Same with the meat packers, the fruit pickers. Same with the people working in all of the factories and shipping plants and driving the trucks. The invisible labor we are all surrounded by every day that touches literally everything I can see right now, aside from the tree outside my window.

And all of the money I spend inevitably trickles upwards to people who are going to use it to do things I consider evil like destroying our natural world for profit.

But! That is not a problem I am going to solve over-night. I can try and tailor my consumption to products that I vet and are hopefully more ethically sourced than alternatives. Even doing this is of questionable utility.

“No ethical consumption under capitalism” and all that.

In Canada it's not so much how that works especially Ontario where I am at. Yes some illegal sales got rolled up into the legal market, but very little. It's very strict to be legit here. All the illegal money for rolled up into real estate instead looks like. :)

Very apt username, as that's what I've found myself doing towards your comment.

Do you have more information on this nefarious China-sponsored drug supply-chain?

There was a pretty high profile case in New Mexico of Chinese growers setting up shop on the Navajo reservation. It was a big operation too.

(you can probably search for better articles, here is one I just found)

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56835897

I hate to break it to you, but OP could be in Canada, where weed is legal and has developed grow ops where cannabis grown and sold locally...

This is an incredibly ignorant, racist, presumably US-centric comment.

Lots of areas (like here in Canada) have well regulated, legal Cannabis businesses. The product even goes through thorough testing procedures [1]. As far as I can tell, it's a very similar setup to alcohol related businesses.

I would love to see a source on this supposed Chinese involvement. This sounds like some early 1900's opium den stereotyping to me.

[1]: https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2021PSSG0050-001115

"You're supporting massive drug lords that wear suits and work alongside law enforcement."

So Heineken, big tobacco, folks behind the opioid crisis, Wells Fargo, etc?

What about common nootropics people take to get into 'programmer flow', like nicotine, lions mane, choline, caffeine, theanine, etc

Surely they're more effective than cannabis, which typically makes everything feel great, but in a sober frame of mind, and on hindsight, seem trivial and over-hyped when sober.

I've tried various nootropic 'blends' (stacks) over the years and they've all been great. Cannabis has its uses, like experiencing the various vibes and feel of a new city for the first time, or making a snowman when it's snowing, but it's not some panacea that makes you super-productive.

Not saying nootropics are a panacea either. You have to have the base multiplier before using nootropics, and already be in a flow state before getting any leverage from them. They don't automatically make you more productive or creative.

Yea, I'm useless on weed and feel slower for a day or two afterwards but have had luck with nootropics. Just a warning about nicotine tho, it works well for me but it is addictive and I feel dumber for a couple days after stopping. Nicotine and substances like adrafinil almost feel like overclocking my brain.

I read there's some research on Lion's mane, and there's a lot about caffeine and theanine but none of this are magic productivity pills. Like it's not that the concentration and productivity effects are obvious and reproducible among all humans. Caffeine has the "keep you awake thing" that cocaine also has and it's pretty reproducible but in most studies I've read about caffeine and L-theanine the flowy non-jittery productive state or any cognitive enhancement are spotty.

I think the other problem with cannabis as a workday desk-job productivity enhancement substance that you are not mentioning is its interaction with other drugs and the unpredictable and really deep tolerance buildup. Like giving an average someone a curve of how much they need to smoke to get the same "effect" among weeks or months is probably really hard.

after seeing some fresh lion's mane at [fancy supermarket] for the first time, I'm convinced it's reputation is just because it looks and feels soft and squishy like a brain.

still take some of course, yolo

Buy yourself some four sigmatic coffee and see for yourself

Coding while really high is difficult. Coding while a little buzzed is a wonderful experience. It's almost like an artificial flow state.

I experience it the same way.

Maybe it's CBD and almost no THC that enables being productive and creative

Maybe? CBD does next to nothing for me. A small amount of THC enables really deep focus for me. I'd describe it as allowing me to follow every thought that passes and deliberately investigate it.

> 29% of our sample reported they had taken a drug test for a programming-related job

Wow, That seems so high. I don't know anyone in my circle of friends who was drug tested. Although, we are all on the west coast.

I took one for both of my corporate jobs, and that was over thirty years ago.

Not new.

That’s a pretty old sample. The war on drugs was full throttle 30 years ago. Boomers were the millennials and the greatest generation had all the real power. Their straight laced policies were on everything.

These days it’s 50/50 for me. Depending on how conservative the corp culture is. But I work in finance and could literally embezzle their money. I’m actually surprised when i don’t get drug tested.

The funny thing is, I worked for a defense contractor for my first job, and looked like Cousin Itt. They never drug tested me.

It is extremely common for more enterprisey jobs, or anything dealing with finance or gov. I wouldn't expect many smaller orgs or startups on the west coast to test very much.

Most regular smokers I know just use fake piss to get around it.

> Furthermore, this cannabis usage is primarily motivated by a perceived enhancement to certain software development skills (such as brainstorming or getting into a programming zone) rather than medicinal reasons

How can anyone who has tried it remotely believe this nonsense?

It's possible to have different reactions to the same drug :)

As someone that is a heavy longtime user and recently diagnosed ADHD (there is a deep relationship between cannabis/substances and ADHD), I did find during the pandemic that smoking cannabis prior to writing software made it feel more productive. Given I couldn't prove that I was really more productive, and there are other costs, I decided against using it at least for my full time job. This is all to say, YMMV with cannabis or any psychoactive substance.

Also ADHD here. I find smoking a little helps significantly with turning off the distractions of Slack, email, reading interesting docs that cross my path. It's much easier to sit down, crank out a coding task, or jump into a deep debugging session.

Not something I do often (or even occasionally), but I definitely don't think it's nonsense.

Undiagnosed but suspected ADHD here. With a bit of THC and some electronic music I can bang code out for hours completely in the zone. It's like I build a great mental model on what I'm working on and become very immersed in it. I can't do it too often as managers need their meetings and updates but it's the most "zen" I ever feel.

In my experience, being in any alternative state of mind, whether from caffeine or moderate amounts of alcohol, or even something not substance related- after working out, after a good night's sleep, after a bad night's sleep (the sweet spot is four hours), there is a sensation of productivity benefit, but I hesitate to claim there is actually productivity in every case. I think these altered states of mind help make it emotionally easier to cope with whatever the underlying cause is- possibly ADHD, possibly some variety of anxiety- and thus make it feel easier to work or engage in other difficult tasks. But cognitively? That's a whole different story.

“Feel more productive” - just like all the drunk drivers who swear, “I actually drive better drunk!”

Comparing "unfocused without cannabis" to "focused with cannabis" is a no brainer: I am definitely more productive with cannabis if it gets my butt in the chair and fingers typing on the keyboard. Comparing "focused without cannabis" to "focused with cannabis" is a different story, likely favoring the former as you are implying, but I think it is a bit less certain than driving drunk which is always dangerous.

Different people work differently. I don't have the spare working memory necessary to be very productive on cannabis, except with respect to very menial tasks. But in college I knew people who studied for our calculus and physics exams stoned and did quite well.

I'd be skeptical of a programmer who claimed cannabis made them more productive, especially at high doses, but if I could see that their work were consistent and good, I might believe them.

I don't think it's nonsense, and it doesn't "work" the same way on everyones brain, that's like the whole reason psychiatry is a thing and research like this makes sense. If cannabis helps 10% of the population get into their "programming zone" all power to their nonsensical selves.

Thinking "this drug makes me useless hence it should make the rest of the world also useless and any claims to the contrary are nonsense" it not only a blatant abuse of incomplete induction, but also kinda rude as it can make some people feel othered out just because of how their brain chemistry works.

Absolutely, but I understand ymmv. I live in California where it's legal, so I decided to try it again. What I found is related to another article on HN right now: Step Away from Stack Overflow (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29659938)

Sometimes I get lost in the programming equivalent of throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. After some time with no progress in figuring out what sticks, it’s time to step away from that approach.

I don't smoke daily. I use it as a tool because I found it helps me when I am semi-manic and just trying to get something to work. I step away from the keyboard and spend time thinking about how to architect my code so that it is easier to write and understand. I'm sure other people do that without smoking, but it's been a big help for me to do that more often.

I’ve tried weed, got addicted to it in college and have seen many people do the same. It made me lazy, completely unmotivated and unproductive. All I did was watch Anime and eat unhealthy foods.

Contrary to the notion that you can think about great ideas and brainstorming - it’s amazing when you’re high. Write down those ideas and think about them when sober - I quickly realized how foolish they were.

Concentration and programming is so far from my experience (and others that I know), I absolutely cannot believe this study. Couldn’t even stay motivated to go take a shower. There has to be a study that matches my experience. What’s going on?

I think your experience probably mimics most experience but years of hanging around people who smoked a lot showed me that it really does affect everyone differently.

I hear people talk about it like it's a miracle drug for pain management, but for me it makes pain worse. I spend the entire time focused on every pain in my body.

I knew a guy who concentrated on problems and coded better when he was stoned. Another who was an amazing chess player and had to smoke before he could play. Others who mixed records and played music while high and it enhanced their abilities. I tried to DJ techno once while high and it was a horrible trainwreck, and I can't focus more than 30 seconds at a time. I wrote a paper in university while high and it was the worst crap I ever wrote. Others swear by it.

Many of my friends were super social and enjoyed going out and doing things. It always made me paranoid, overly self-critical, and I spent the whole time taking myself apart and feeling sad.

So I didn't smoke it for almost 20 years. I tried it again recently now that it's legal here. Basically the same experience, even with "low THC, high CBD" strains.

It really comes down to YMMV. And yes, I saw many people with the same experience as you, including a close relative. Unproductive, unmotivated, and low concentration, and chronic.

Sounds like my experience but I was using it at the time to cope with depression and anxiety about graduating from college amid the late 2000's financial crisis and other stresses you deal with as a lonely young adult.

But I also never really stopped smoking and learned to use it to cope with a multitude of things like migraines and sleeplessness.

In the end it often comes down to the person and their reactions to a substance more than the substance itself. I can smoke and melt on the couch or I can smoke and go for a long walk and decompress.

> I absolutely cannot believe this study

What do you not believe about the study? Did you read the study?

> In this paper, we presented results of the first empirical study of cannabis’s prevalence, perceptions, and usage motivations in programming environments

I don't think this study says "weed makes you better" or anything like that.

Thanks for calling out one of the many people responding without reading the material, not even the abstract apparently. HN users are typically better about this than other platforms, but this topic seems to be especially triggering for people who have had some negative life experience related to weed.

My issues isn't just with regards to this paper, but with the general narratives that are being spun around weed. They're not objective IMO and there is some sort of societal pressure against seeking truth. That's how I feel with proponents of weed. Don't get me wrong - personally, Marijuana is a lot of fun but I'd want to not get carried away. I also believe in individual liberty and I don't condone banning weed.

> They're not objective IMO and there is some sort of societal pressure against seeking truth

In my (speculative) opinion, it's not "societal pressure" but rather "capitalism pressure" narrating the recent weed uprise. As in, the opportunity to capitalize on weed has been pushing the narrative that it's a harmless cool drug.

The risks of heavy cannabis use are well documented and easily available to those who care to research it. For example, try CTRL+F "cannabis" on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia.

Once again, just like alcohol and tobacco, capitalism wins over public health.

In my experience, lazy people who already love eating and watching TV will double down on this behavior when using cannabis. It can make you feel comfortable and OK with things, and also triggers the appetite. So instead of becoming satiated/bored with your activities and moving to something else, you remain in place.

Others who are not as thrilled with consuming food and media to begin with will have different cannabis experiences. You'll probably find them exercising, making art/music, or creating software like mentioned in the article.

I'm sorry if this offends you, but your statement might say more about you as a person than about the effects of cannabis.

Remember cannabis has a range of effects, so there is no singular "it" to be tried. You can try one strain of cannabis and it will knock you out. No problem solving happening there. Then you can try another strain and your mind is flooded with ideas. Both are called "cannabis" but it's not the same drug really.

This has definitely been my experience. If you take an Indica gummy, you're most likely going to want to just lay on the couch and take a nap. On the other hand, I've had hybrids and sativas that will really lock me in on what I'm doing. I don't know if I could say I was more productive, but I definitely felt more focused.

YMMV. I’ve found that it helps to turn off distractions and let my brain get in the right state to play with the problem, to look at it from different angles… basically brainstorming.

It’s pretty well known that marijuana helps to boost creativity; just look at all the music (and media in general) that’s been created by musicians high on pot.

Arguably, it’s effects have not been studied as well as regular drugs so perhaps that’s needed to make more objective statements about its effects.

This has basically been my experience with it... the actual act of typing out code goes slower, but my ideas are more fluid and I'm able to "see" the whole picture more clearly. I think the slowness is more to do with having more ideas and noticing more details and possibilities than otherwise, so I have to spend more time sorting through all that.

Anyone who has tried it and doesn't use it, might experience it different than people who use it every day. I've known new users who couldn't walk straight after a bowl, and "pro" users who smoke 2+ grams a day and just keep on trucking. It comes down to tolerances, and probably also your mind adjusting to how it interprets the world under the influence of marijuana which is a mild psychedelic.

Also going to add that the time-dilation effect of marijuana will definitely make you feel less productive but you will realize only 1/3 of the time you thought passed has passed. I'm sure this might play into some of the findings.

I tried and can confirm it works exactly like that for me.

I program high often. It's resulted in good code and bad code at proportions roughly equal to sober programming. The difference is generally in which code is good in each case.

Tricky memory stuff, trying to deal with complex order of operations (threads, race conditions, etc) tends to go way better sober.

House keeping like light refactors (im in rust these days so stuff like: oh that should be a result not an option, or using matches instead of ifs, genericize this struct), boiler plate stuff and cleaning up logs/error handling tends to go better when I'm high.

But there are exceptions to both trends and I've done good deep work high and done plenty of good housekeeping sober. And of course since it's coding, i've (re)done plenty of bad work in both states too.

Sad to know my experience is just nonsense. I guess I need to get in touch with the CFO and let him know the profit from the product I wrote is just a pipe dream.

Eliminating chronic pain can have the net result of improving concentration and intelligence from baseline.

I have absolutely had profoundly productive days while using THC. It's not black and white. Like any tool, it needs to be used responsibly.

It's great for brainstorming! In fact I get the wildest ideas for programs software and the like while high in bed.

This seems like a good place to drop a cool tip I learned recently. You can cure a weed overdose (the whitey) quickly with black pepper. Sniff it for instant relief, or swallow some whole corns. You can pop a few peppercorns pre-emptively too before you indulge. No more paranoia or anxiety.

I would proffer that the recruitment bias for this survey renders its results dangerous. I would proffer further that programmers at large do no use cannabis and the "true" conclusion for such a study might well be the exact opposite of the authors.

The recuitment basis for the survey is not random and is only amongst a very small subset of candidates the authors considered "ethically permitted" (specifically from GitHub, the University of Michigan and social media). So probably few enterprise programmers and few non-US participants, etc.. In other words not the majority of programmers.

"We now present indirect evidence that our participants, while not a random sample, are similar in many ways to previous random samples or studies. A true random sample would not have been ethically permitted, but we gain confidence in our results’ generalizability by contextualizing participants’ gender, age, and employment. ... our study population by recruitment pool (e.g., how they were contacted to participate in this study)... from GitHub ... from the university ... and social media" - page 4, https://arxiv.org/pdf/2112.09365.pdf

A more meaningful lead-in survey would have been to ask programmers from all sources if they are subject to any form of drug-testing.

Perhaps they should have selected a less clickbaity title for their study:

A Survey of [Ethically Permitted USA] Programmers' Cannabis Usage, Perception, and Motivation

I always find it is more difficult to program while under the influence, I tend to make more typos and small mistakes.

Doesn't stop me though.

This is the most realistic answer here.

I can't even focus/code after 1 beer. I can't imagine what cannabis would do.

Totally different substance.

Agreed. I can't anything cognitively difficult when I am any kind of intoxicated.

In my twenties I did some of my best work after a few beers, as long as you define "best work" as "innovative code that works well but is mostly incomprehensible when you come back to it 6 months later"

This is a normal occurrence for me when I'm sober too :D

I've vaped marijuana every night to sleep for the past 3 years or so... beats the pants off of any other insomnia med I've tried and it certainly takes the edge off of pandemic stress.

As a weird side-effect it occasionally makes me want to work more, because an idea will hit me as I'm high. 50% of the time it's actually a really good idea. The effects on creativity are so apparent, I never would have guessed before trying it.

I'm very diligent with not partaking during normal working hours though, my worst nightmare is having to debug something time-sensitive while high... it absolutely does not seem like a good time.

I thought that cannabis enhances the imagination, boosts the creativity and induces out of the box thinking up until I was late to a party. When I arrived, I was sober when everyone else was high and I couldn't bear the stupidity of those normally intelligent people. That's when I stop using the substance.

I'm more inclined to believe that Ballmer Peak[0] is a real thing and I do get productive, motivated and creative when I'm slightly drunk.

Back in the university, one night when I was lonely and bored I just got enough drunk to code a Facebook app that will give invitations to invite-only shopping startup using my referral. By the time the sunlight hit me, I was finished reverse engineering their invite system, write a code that will generate the invite, design the UI where people will request the invite, write the copy that promotes it, integrate all that into Facebook app(at that time FB was cool), post it to the social media. Not the biggest engineering or creative challenge but I was first at it.

When I woke up, my app was all over the social media, the founder had me added as a friend and invited me to their office. Lifted my max invitations limit and I made quite substantial(for a student)referral bonus and kept spending it for years to come.

https://xkcd.com/323/

I can imagine it's a super different experience to be (probably very) high at a party, and to be a little stoned while working alone on a programming task. (Compare someone who's had 1 beer, and someone at a party doing shots in the kitchen :p)

There's also the possibility that different people are affected differently, and maybe you just prefer alcohol to marijuana ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It could be, it's just that I'm yet to see someone fun and intelligent when Iim sober and they are high on cannabis(those who are high think that they are, of course). Slightly drunk people tend to be fun and maybe not exactly more intelligent than the sober but they tend to go out of their comfort zone which enables them to entertain ideas that they normally wouldn't do.

There are many stories about how people invent things when slightly drunk at the bar and write it down on a napkin.

> yet to see someone fun and intelligent when Iim sober and they are high on cannabis

I've gotta ask: how do you know you haven't yet? Not everyone who is high loves to announce it to the world.

You can usually tell from the smell

That was more true prior to legalization. Now with edibles and cartridges and vaporizers you might never know if the person you're talking to is zooted to Mars or not.

It's not right to assume that it's legalised everywhere.

Even if it’s not legalized everywhere, I can 100% guarantee you that edibles and vapes are available for purchase in your local community. There isn’t even a question about that.

Oh, so you believe all people using cannabis are the ones lighting it on fire/probably using tobacco, at the same time?

Common misconception. Find vaporization people!

I can’t see how you can do anything other than micro-dose cannabis (small hits or low dosage edibles). You just get too high to be productive.

But I’m very interested to see if low dosages help.

for me, cannabis is only useful for sleep and sometimes blank canvas thinking.

This is maybe pendantic but there are different types of productivity. If I really need to get one thing done, it does no favors to be stoned. But if you just want to learn, experiment, explore, I find it extremely useful in keeping myself patient and receptive.

I learn languages in very much sober place, but learning linux I can be stoned, and maybe it helps?

Also if your in this space at all, you just need to modify Hemingway's advice: commit stoned, but rebase sober!

That’s quite true. I’ve sat through a couple lectures/learning tutorials with some wine and managed fine (was more fun).

Taking the edge off is a strategy that works well in moderation since often procrastination is a phenomenon where fear and anxiety can be inhibiting.

Stigma is one of the reasons experimentation has such a bad rap.

That depends. A lot of people who say you "just get too high" often have a super low tolerance, and they are smoking enough to get shit faced. If you smoke frequently and only do a puff, trust me, not everybody gets as high as you do with your one edible a month. I work at a top tech company smoking before work, it really only relaxes me at this point, however I smoked weed since 14.

I will certainly confess my tolerance sucks, but we are effectively talking about the same end result. To get a useful high, we need just the right functional amount of buzz. The quantity is obviously different for everyone, but the goal is the same.

Anecdotally, I’ve found that when I’m stumped on a section of code, a micro dose, coupled with working on something else, _can_ speed my normal process of “walking away from a problem for a bit.” But yeah, exceeding a small amount just makes me code slower.

edit: originally omitted “something else”

I've had the same experience. It forces me out of that obsessive debugging loop and gets me thinking about something else for a while. Though I'm sure there are plenty of other activities that could accomplish the same thing.

I used to vape full spectrum THC+CBD cartridges and other forms of "vape juice" ("sugar", "oil", etc. are in that category) and consume THC+CBD edibles all day long, every day (except when I had to drive somewhere, I would stop for 4-6 hours or more prior to the trip), for about 2-3 (maybe 4?) years when I was in a legal state, but then I had to move to a non-legal state and since I have a kid it's no longer possible for me to use any weed (don't want to lose him to the system). I miss it so much, I was so much less stressed and calm with weed, and I was much more focused on work and I slept better. Now, I basically have to take shitty OTC sleep drugs and drink a pot (haha) of coffee a day in order to survive, and I yell way too much at my kid and get too angry at work. I wish we could just legalize it everywhere (fat chance of that happening) and make it like tobacco and alcohol, both of which are way worse for you than a daily weed habit.

That’s weird - I had to go off weed during a highly stressful period of my life. It temporarily made me forget about how stressful things were but then it all came crashing back after it wore off. I didn’t have time to process the stress sober.

I’ve heard it’s very useful for extremely traumatic or temporarily stressful incidents but I found the opposite for chronic stress.

I’m an anxious person and it helped me a lot. I think it really depends on the individual because my wife just gets more stressed and anxious on weed, but for me it’s a miracle drug. In any case, I’m okay sober but I would love to at least have weed occasionally during large levels of stress. I would never be one of those people who suggest weed is great for everyone, just like alcohol is okay for some folks but for others the negatives are greater than the positives. If government would get out of the way and let us all decide what we prefer, and allow us get high quality drugs from a reliable and tested source, then I think each person would be better served by that than the government being our mommy and daddy.

The farm bill made all hemp derived products legal federally at long as they contain only trace amounts of Delta 9 THC. Delta 8 and THC-O/acetate are legal. Not as strong, slightly different, but it gets the job done... kinda. Check it out... if you can. Check your state laws.

I could easily get the real thing here, it’s not exactly weed unfriendly, but due to the nature of the thing I don’t want to risk losing my child to the system for even one puff. I’m pretty much just fine sober, but I hope reason wins here soon and they legalize it fully, until then I prefer not to take any risky shortcuts.

Used to smoke daily for 20+ years. Nobody should kid themselves that pot makes you "stupid", for lack of a better term.

Also puts me in a really bad mood the next day - short tempered, even aggressive.

On rare occasions it does help with brainstorming, looking at things differently. But mostly it's good for forgetting about your day and just going to bed.

Smoking (carcinogens, lowered blood oxygen) makes you stupid.

I work in government, and I smoke just about every day, all day. From a lifetime of trauma and PTSD, depression, and anxiety, NOTHING has been able to hold a candle next to the mental relief I get from just a little marijuana. It’s not for everyone, and although I’ve abstained many times, for me, it’s been a lifesaver.

Just read the abstract but seems to make sense. Weed (in a low/moderate dose) is great every once and awhile if you're trying to brainstorm or think holistically about how something should work. Sometimes if you have to work on something really boring it allows you to see it in a new light and appreciate interesting the aspects of the task. But if you're actually trying to get work done, good luck remembering what loop iteration you're on!

Despite the above, personally I have a hard time justifying getting "high on the clock" as ethical even if it makes me more productive in some things. Though it feels like having a little puff on a wide-open, set-aside Friday afternoon isn't too much different than having a drink in that situation, something I'm occasionally guilty of. IDK. What do people here think?

Do you think drinking caffeine is similarly unethical, why or why not?

No, definitely not. In a strict sense, because it is not a federally scheduled drug and I didn't make any agreement with my employer not to use it on the clock.

The same argument applies to alcohol, but I've noticed that cultural expectations around drinking are a lot different. A "business lunch" with a beer is no big deal in many (most?) industries. But I've never been at a business lunch where everyone passed around a joint!

> because it is not a federally scheduled drug

Is it your view that cannabis is a federally scheduled drug for ethical reasons? Or is your view that it's always ethical to follow laws as written? I guess what I'm getting at is that to me there doesn't seem to be any good ethical reason for cannabis to be a federally scheduled drug in the first place. In fact, given the devastation the war on drugs has caused, it's my opinion that it's unethical for cannabis to be a federally scheduled drug.

Depends on culture of course. When I worked in Sweden a beer with lunch was considered pretty anathema.

Do you consider getting a high off of caffeine to be unethical? Assuming some people find weed to be a performance enhancer, why is that different?

Well for myself, most of the time when I start working somewhere I sign agreements stating I won't be using drugs/alcohol on the clock. So even though I may feel it's personally okay and the agreement is silly, I would still be violating it.

Perhaps I could approach my employer and explain actually getting high makes me more productive, but I have never had the courage to start such a conversation :)

I don't know you but if you're like most people, you've probably violated other (non-drug related) clauses in your contract already. Ever watched a YouTube video during work hours? (assuming you don't work for Google/YouTube) Ever took a personal phone call during work? Ever been late? I get the feeling that it's not just a matter of avoiding a breach of contract in your case although you phrased it that way.

caffeine is a drug. i saw your response regarding the illegality of it being the major deterrent. if it weren't, would you change your viewpoint?

Because the right side of the caffeine Ballmer peak is less steep.

Well, and sometimes just maybe. When people feel like that and… but it is not always. Just a feeling that sometimes and just not always. But people do get the feel, and it is not the same thing but not always too. And it is great and good. /s

Weed doesn't help me program at all. It just conspires with my ADD to ensure that I have a really fun time playing video games. :) However, it does help with a lot of ancillary things: Helps me relax and reduces physical stress and tightness, helps me sleep, helps me enjoy workouts more (dunno how that one works).

I've basically stopped doing weed altogether though, except on holidays and vacations when I really feel comfortable forgetting all responsibility for awhile.

Since we're all sharing our anecdotes...

I'm in a someowhat rare position of wanting to consume (and particularly smoke) more cannabis, especially during the work day, but I refrain because of the "anxiety" or "paranoia" it causes.

I use quotes because these phenomena aren't precisely anxiety or paranoia, and after-the-fact, I'm almost always thankful for the reflection that they provide.

Has anybody found a way to increase intake and keep it regular over the long-term amidst these pain points?

For me it really depends on how much I smoke and what the task is. If I’m trying to learn new tech and implement something new I’m weed dosnt help. If it’s coding in a language I already know beyond the absolute basics and I smoke a reasonable amount it actual makes me feel more engaged. Of course 10 bong rips or something wouldn’t be good, but a certain amount is great once in a while. As for alchahol after about 1 beer I lose all motivation to do anything and think clearly.

A personal anecdote; I don't find Cannabis useful for difficult problem solving, but for more repetitive tasks like writing unit tests it's a fun way to pass the time.

Yeah the only uses I've ever found for cannabis was: doing the dishes and going to sleep.

I use cannabis for creativity and motivation, in both writing fiction and playing piano. I can't prove that it gives me better ideas, but looking back from a state of sobriety, I believe that it does, and certainly I've been more productive high than I ever was sober.

The catch is that I take frequent breaks. My current rule is, for every session, I have to go one calendar day without using it at all. This also keeps my tolerance low, so I only use about a gram a month.

I'm a programmer (cto these days) and a skateboarder (kind of c'os age is not just a a number) and I've always been in awe of people who smoke weed and are able to engage in either activity and yet I do have friends capable of such. This is not a lie :-) I've seen it with my own eyes. What amazes me is how good they are at it. If, by contrast, I did same I would end up hurt or fired :-)

Smoking helps me through the "grindy" parts of programming, like you have a set goal in front of you with many small tasks and the way they all fit together can be held in your mind in one go. When it comes to idea deadlock, like no architecture is a good fit and you just need to choose the best of the bad paths, cannabis can hinder me greatly. I work on many side projects with a toke or two.

> Such cannabis usage, however, is in conflict with anti-drug poli- cies currently enacted for many software engineering jobs: 29% of our sample reported they had taken a drug test for a programming- related job, a hiring practice that may limit developer application pools.

What? 29% ... seriously? That's outrageous.

I've had to take one for a job because it was a government contractor position. I wonder if that's related to why the response is higher?

that would be the only reason coming to my mind but then that sample would be quite biased. I never heard of that being a thing ever for dev positions.

A really really large number of programmers work for places like government contrators, banks, and insurance companies - the types of places that have blanket drug policies for all employees. There's probably a lot more companies that have such policies but they aren't enforced (unless something bad happens requiring it) because insurance gives discounts for having the policy, but thye will lose employees if they start enforcing it in a serious way.

It does help you write code, which is strange since it doesn’t help you do other things better. Perhaps it’s a matter of dosage though- a little bit helps you get in the zone and visualize the data. But I can’t smoke anymore because I have children I’m responsible for.

Somewhat related, but a recent Senate hearing cited the lack of a national standard regarding cannabis impaired driving. They voted to investigate further. Results may be counter-intuitive ;)

Interesting there is so little research into the actual *effects* on humans. You get better data from Leafly reviews!

Because the DEA and the "War" on Drugs opposed any research.

Just as congress prohibited the government from maintaining statistics on gun violence almost 20 years ago.

If you don't like what might be learned, don't let anyone look.

(I don't like smoking pot, or really any mind altering substances, but other peoples' use is none of my business and I think it is worth a study).

> Interesting there is so little research into the actual effects on humans. You get better data from Leafly reviews!

I imagine that this will always be true, because what you want to know about the effects is inherently qualitative and subjective, and that kind of research gets relatively little attention and funding.

Many years ago, before we legalized it generally, an acquaintance of my father fought a fun court case related to this.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/pot-smoking-motorist-not-guil...

From everything I've read about him, the guy was a hell of a character and maybe some of his misfortune was self-inflicted, but he did fight some important court cases around marijuana laws.

Always enjoyed but in small amounts and weak power. If it's only coding i can definitely see good impact on my performance but having meetings really really bring out the worst side (boredom) of meetings. Small joint with a bit of hash and coffee is the breakfast of the champions!

The only time that canabis helps me personally at work is when I am almost at a burn out. Smoking on the weekend (not while working) it gives me a fresh start the next week, well rested. Never helped me to be a better developer while high, actually for me it is the oposit.

I remember that survey from April. Another of those IRB-waived studies, with interesting questions such as "do you use other substances such as cocaine". Admitting to crimes was not enough to warrant IRB review...

The survey also asked for detailed demographic data (well enough to de-anonymize IMHO) -- age, gender, income, field, highest degree...

The link to the form to enter the drawing for $100 gift cards at the end was also dead (https://twitter.com/remram44/status/1379071856326684678)

Not to put the results into questions, only to echo the recent Princeton mishaps I guess.

Looking at the jerk off code in some highly revered and critical software, it wouldn't surprise me if the writers were on LSD or meth.

A+ wordplay in the title of the actual survey.

This should be in the "Any excuse to get loaded.", department.

manager here, but weed helps me unwind and destress after a busy week or day, think i'd jeopardise that work/life balance by ripping shotties during work hours

for me weed is definitely an impediment to coding, even more so than alcohol

> "... 35% of our sample has tried programming while using cannabis, and 18% currently do so at least once a month..."

Selection bias.

Is it? It seems like you're comparing your anecdotal evidence against their (at least somewhat) scientific survey, which makes it more likely that you experience selection bias.

I don't think a sample with 35% positive sample is representative of the population.

I think a lot of the overengineering is driven by amphetamines and self medication instead. I'd expect a system designed under Cannabis to be very simple and flexible.

Is "programmer" a coherent group?

How much does a Senior Engineer doing something like writing kernel code have in common with a fresh high school grad writing on something like a single threaded ASP/PHP codebase for an internal tool that has fewer than 100 daily users?

I've done both of those jobs, and they both involve the same set of general tasks (requirements, brainstorming, coding). But in actuality they have almost nothing in common. The fact that both involve writing code is mostly a red herring.

More to the point: is a convenience sample taken by a university research group representative of the profession?

I'm generally suspicious of Emperical SE research that doesn't either:

1. focus on specific sub-populations of the programming profession, or else

2. make an extremely strong case that their research questions are highly likely to generalize across all research labor.

(edit: changed wording because many folks made the worst-possible interpretations of my original comment.)

> Is "programmer" a coherent group?

Well, it's a profession, so yes.

> They have almost nothing in common.

They both write code all day. Professionally.

I'm sorry for the snark. You might be able to make a case that this study doesn't take income into account but that's not the comment you're making here.

I think there's a fundamental complexity and skills-required difference between someone writing kernel code or microcode and someone writing a generic CRUD app.

Most devs at “$FANCY_CO” aren’t writing kernel code or microcode either.

There is merit to the idea that different developers focus on different kinds of problems, but the positioning of the parent comment - that this variance is due to the size/prestige of the org - is incorrect.

Yeah but do salaries represent that? The biggest mistake I've made in the past 10 years of my life is choosing to focus on low level instead of just chasing the latest and greatest react/rails stuff. Fresh grads with experience only in Java at $FANCY_CO outearn me by a factor of 2.5 because they get on the web/app track.

Meanwhile over in embedded I'm writing highly performant const-correct modern asio C++ applications requiring custom kernel drivers.

Parent comment had the nerve to imply that I'm not even a true programmer. None of this shit makes any sense anymore, I can't wait for the bubble to pop.

There are hot companies in need of embedded programmers. Plenty of auto companies, both self-driving and not, it's a big space. Ditto for IoT, which has gone from an enthusiast's hobby to a mainstream category over the past five years. Representing these spaces, Rivian and Samsara both went public in the past two months, respectively. Nearly every FAANG makes consumer electronics, and at least a couple are into cars.

> Parent comment had the nerve to imply that I'm not even a true programmer.

That wasn't my intention.

> Fresh grads with experience only in Java at $FANCY_CO outearn me by a factor of 2.5 because they get on the web/app track.

1. In fact, my example of "less complex job" was "web dev".

2. Most fresh grads doing web dev make $55K or so. The $FANCY_CO engineers are an outlier. And, FWIW, within those companies, the low-level C++ people tend to make a lot more than the fresh grad web dev people.

point is, what does it matter how complex the programmatic effort is, cognitively? judge the ability to be high during the tasks by its' earning potential :)

Programmer isn't a profession though.

It's missing things like licensing groups to limit the supply of labour. Similarly, while some programmers are highly educated, plenty are self taught or started working after a couple weeks of boot camp.

What?!

What word would you prefer to use to refer to the group of people who get paid to program?

You're taking this extremely personally. My comment is about a scientific paper, not about you.

> Well, it's a profession, so yes.

I meant from a scientific perspective. I.e., here's the point: "can we lump all programmers together, randomly sample, do a correlational study or survey, and draw conclusions about the underlying population?"

I assert that such studies will generally fail to replicate and will mostly tell you about the properties of a skewed convenience sample.

> They both write code all day. Professionally.

You could say the same thing about people who work in hospitals. Or people who work in offices. What's the difference between a novelist and a listicle author? They both write all day, professionally.

Heck, what's the difference between a journalist and a lawyer? Again, they both write natural language all day. Professionally.

And sometimes you can do studies that generalize. But, generally speaking, an empirical study about what makes novelists productive won't necessarily tell you how to make legal clerks more productive.

It's not income. In fact, I didn't even mention the salary of the senior engineer in my hypothetical! $FANCY_CO was supposed to be a sign-post for difficult problems and/or complex politics, not compensation. (The $10/hr web dev does sign-post the complexity of the work, and wasn't meant as a hyperbole... I started my career making $10/hr doing PHP dev for local businesses. It was really easy work. Requirements were simple, code was trivial, and there was never more than 1 counter-party. The job was low-paying for a reason.)

It's the type of work. I've done a lot of programming, of lots of varieties at nearly all pay scales. Here are some buckets:

There's a lot of programming that is easy and mechanical (at all payscales). There's a lot of programming that is extremely complex and requires intense symbolic/mathematical reasoning.

There's a lot of programming where the code is simple but you need to think long and hard about some complex technical topic separate from the code.

There's a lot of programming that is extremely social and requires an incredible amount of intentional interaction with customers or internal stakeholders.

These are the same job in the same sense that all medical professions are the same job or all people who write natural language all day have the same job.

There is a strong relationship between pay and the degree to which an inebriating drug would impair your ability to perform well. But it's of course not a perfect correlation. Some highly paid people do trivial work. Some low paid people do complex work.

I’ve also done both of those jobs, and they have quite a bit in common. The scale of the problems to be solved may be different, and that naturally results in some differences between the roles, but the fundamentals are all the same.

It’s unclear what kind of point you’re trying to make and how it had any bearing on the cannabis angle.

> but the fundamentals are all the same.

Sure. Also, any job that requires writing English all day has some cross-cutting fundamentals.

I'm making a general point about empirical software engineering research: "does the question that's being asked get at the fundamentals that are shared between all programmers, or do we need to be more careful about specifying what we mean when we say 'programmer'?"

> It’s unclear what kind of point you’re trying to make and how it had any bearing on the cannabis angle.

I could probably do the "$local_shop web dev job" high all day. Not probably. I definitely could write straight-forward iPhone apps or Django web apps all day long while high as a kite. No problem.

I definitely couldn't do other programming jobs high all day -- either because I need to spend a ton of time in careful conversation with other people, or because the technical problems require sobriety, or more usually a combination of both.

Apparently the basic observation that some programming is easier than other programming is divisive here. That's fine for an HN comment thread. But I'd love to see a paper that goes something like "here are some buckets of programming jobs. Let's try to replicate a bunch of empirical SE studies with samples selected from each of these buckets and see what happens."

I don’t think there’s any question that some kinds of programming is harder than others. The only thing that seems to be divisive is automatically assuming that the size or prestige of the org is what drives the complexity of the work.

It’s easy to find easy programming work in big shops, and not uncommon to find hard work in small shops.

As I said in my previous comment, there is absolutely a difference between different kinds of work.

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