Ask HN: How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How many of you (coders) use marijuana?

70 pointsjgalvez105 comments

With the recent public talk and growing awareness about marijuana and the failed policies against it, it occurred to me it would be interesting to get an idea of how many fellow programmers use marijuana and how it affects their work. I find it specially positive in my work, as an aid to better concentration and also greater creativity.

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Not me. I'm of the opinion that lighting things on fire and sticking them near your head to breathe just sounds like a bad idea all the way around.

I'm for legalization though. The idea of outlawing a weed that does less harm than alcohol is ludicrous.

I experimented a bit as a teenager. As I recall, it didn't help my analytical skills at all -- unless by analytical skills you mean finding doughnuts at 3am or being able to smile stupidly while listening to Led Zeppelin tunes.

I think intoxication is a natural state of mankind, so if you like toking or drinking or running until endorphins seep out of your ears I can understand that. I just don't think any of that, no matter how good it feels, actually makes you a better coder. If anything, I think good coders learn the natural rhythms of their bodies and minds, then maximize their performance based on that.

Now can it make you think you're a better coder? Sure thing, boss.

I do have issues with the smoke myself, and I indulge maybe once in a few months, so I never get used to it. Although I find the effects of marijuana to be far, far superior to alcohol or most other drugs, for me anyway.

Anyone tried vaporators? Supposedly they heat the bud to the point of releasing essential oils into the air, but not to the point of ignition.

I wonder if any hardware hackers here have applied their skills to drug consumption? For instance, I know a guy who has produced ingenious contraptions for nitrous oxide delivery.

Vaporizers are the premium delivery device for marijuana. Virtually all the harmful components of smoke are simply not produced, and virtually all the desirable components of the herb are released. I never owned one, but my time near a Volcano ($500, Teutonic engineering at its finest) was well spent.

Or so I heard. Drug use is illegal and immoral. Or so I heard.

(In reality, I have not smoked for some time; it started to give me problems with muscle tension, so I laid off. Hooray for a total lack of physical addictiveness!)

Vaporizers are my preferred way of consuming. Ever since I got a good quality vaporizer, I don't smoke anymore. It's a lot cleaner than smoking (though not totally tar-free, but close enough), and it saves you money. In my non-scientific estimation, I think I use about 1/4 of what I would if I was smoking. It also seems like a cleaner high, often times more energetic, and I come down from the high smoother.

I have the HerbalAIRE Vaporizer H2.1 (http://www.gotvape.com/store/herbalaire.vaporizer.php). You can set the temperature for (which it regulates), and it fills up a bag. It's not a Volcano, but its good enough (costed $250 vs the ~$600 Volcano). I built my own from a soldering iron before, but it just doesn't work as well as it took 10-15 minutes before it was ready, whereas this one takes about 3-5 minutes. Buying a good quality vaporizer is well worth the money vs making your own, unless you are skilled enough to make your own quality vaporizer (with proper temperature control).

Also, cooking it in oil/butter is also a healthier alternative (the healthiest alternative probably). I do that as well, but that's more for when I will be out in public where I can't use my vaporizer (really great for concerts for example). I generally cook the oil or butter into baked goods (brownies or chocolate chip cookies), or sometimes take spoonfuls of the oil straight.

The only problem with both of these methods is that you are committing to using a certain amount and its harder to regulate how high you get. With eating it, you don't feel it for an hour or so, so its sometimes hard to judge how much you need unless you've already tried a batch. With vaporizers, whatever you put into the vaporizer gets used up, and you can either waste it by not inhaling it all, or inhale it all which could lead to getting higher than you wanted to. With smoking its easier to regulate as you can just put it out or not toke again; or take your time between tokes.

As for actually using when coding, I do occasionally work on my personal projects after getting high; but this is more because I'm obsessed with coding and working on these projects more than purposefully getting high with the intentions of sitting down and coding.

I don't know if it improves my abilities, really, but it does make doing mundane tasks more tolerable. It allows me to focus and get lost in the problem. And also I sometimes do brainstorming and come up with ideas which I quickly note down before I forget. It makes my imagination start to think about the problems I am working on, which leads to actually having the motivation to try out what I'm imagining, hence why I often end up coding after I get high (though generally after I've come down a bit). The idea that pot de-motivates you is a myth in my opinion.

And yes, I created this account just to post in thread, and have a separate HN account for non-incriminating conversations :)

> Buying a good quality vaporizer is well worth the money vs making your own, unless you are skilled enough to make your own quality vaporizer (with proper temperature control).

I don't smoke pot (I would try some, but I don't care enough to actually find someone who sells it), but I am sorely tempted to make a vaporizer and put the schematics online. Does it just need to maintain a constant temperature in a small area? That sounds like a pretty fun project. I imagine you could make a control system pretty easily with a few op-amps and a basic temperature sensor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhEGp7aD-qA

use a clear bulb though

I think a lot of people come to the mistaken conclusion that smoking pot makes you "stupid." I don't think it necessarily impairs cognitive performance as much as it makes it seem less important. If we were passing around a joint and before I had to hit it again, I had to multiply two 3-digit numbers together and translate a a paragraph into spanish, I could. But smoking makes you less likely to approach a problem like that. It allows you to take in perspectives other than your own.

While smoking, I have uncovered repressed memories of childhood, resolved interpersonal conflicts, and redesigned interfaces.

Calling a high person "stupid" is like calling someone stupid because they speak a different language, or calling a child stupid because they ask a question about something that seems trivial.

I've always felt that weed helps one reconcile disparate concepts. When you take off all your different hats and just look at the problem with a more basic human perspective, without the little compartments into which we organize all our issues. Of course, some people can achieve this level of perspective without drugs, more power to them. Similarly, some people react differently to marijuana - bummer for them. I smoke regularly, but not when I need to code - it's not that I can't code, it's just horrendously unappealing when high.

The bottom line is just knowing what helps you accomplish what and when to take part. I speak significantly better french with a little booze in me and I design better logos after a few hits. Some people are better designers and french speakers than me without ever having tried either.

I don't think he is saying that 'smoking pot makes you "stupid"'. The point he makes is that empirical observations about your own performance, while on a mind-altering drug, are inherently flawed.

It can be hard enough to make empirical observations about one's own performance even when not under the influence of a mind-altering drug.

I did once spend an afternoon making recordings of myself playing guitar at different levels of sobriety. Results pretty much as expected :->.

Empirical observations about your own performance are inherently flawed while not on a mind-altering drug, barring measurement/metrics. If you're measuring, I can't imagine how your state of mind could affect those.

If you want good separation, find a metric that can be recorded/played back.

I thought we were hackers? There are obvious solutions here...

I created this account for privacy reasons, and I'm one of the more active/karmic people in this community. Yes, this is an oppressive culture (in the US).

I'm a somewhat heavy bud smoker and a full-time developer. #define HEAVY? That's subjective, but I can comfortably go through a quarter ounce in a week, and my ideal consumption is probably 1.5 grams per day. I've known people who think a bowl a day is heavy and that an ounce a week is normal, so like I said, subjective.

I oscillate between stretches of daily smoking and stretches of sobriety. Clearly, there are advantages to being sober, and I wouldn't appreciate the benefits that ganja brings if it became too regular a habit.

I'm full of it, right? It's a pitiful escape, and an intoxicant couldn't possibly have any benefits, right? So allow me to enumerate them:

1. Ganja truly opens your mind. Now, we all have open minds, but there's a further degree of relaxation and openness that it helps one to achieve. This allows me to grasp very abstract concepts quickly because there are fewer preconceptions and other obstacles to learning. It would've taken me far longer to grasp functional programming, I believe, without this benefit.

2. Morale: After a night of boozin', you will feel like crap the next day. After a night of smoking, I feel like a million bucks in the morning. Granted, I've been an insomniac all my life, and ganja is prescribed in many places for this malady. I come in to work the next day refreshed and ready to dive into my work, and I'm undoubtedly more productive when this well-rested.

3. Energy/endurance: I don't always have the patience or energy for prolonged hackage, especially when it comes to things that once frustrated me, like setting up a dedicated server. When high, I can easily wade through the tasks at hand, and next thing I know, they're done. I often come home from work feeling drained, fire up a little bowl, and am re-energized. What just a minute ago seemed unthinkable (fatigued, firing up my computer to hack on something) becomes irresistable because it's one of my true passions.

So, ganja is very good for me. It may be terrible for others, so I don't offer any advice here. I have yet to encounter any ill effects thus far concerning my health, and it does _not_ at all affect my stamina in physical activity as would tobacco.

I never show up at work blazed, and only partake in my free time. And if you think that stoners are lazy, on top of this full-time job I run a web development business with three employees.

- 21 year-old

Did you create this account just to post that? Or is this honestly your first time making a contribution here?

I'm not sure you're with me on this one but allow me to elaborate:

4. Concentration: distraction and lack of focus is the #1 killer of all good software projects. And I have seen that programmers, in my experience, have a natural talent to be distracted and lose focus. Who never lost a day on a combination of Reddit, Bloglines and Hacker News? I know I did. Of course you don't need marijuana to force yourself to attain focus, but the forces that drive me to work are usually negative ("If I don't deliver this, I won't get paid", "My rent is overdue", "I'll just finish Y so I'll have time to do work on X which is more interesting").

The state of mind marijuana gives me is the one of calmness and extreme relaxation, and as it's been observed, "Relaxation precedes perfect concentration" (http://tinyurl.com/6c632t). It's the bizarre kind of relaxation that you get when it's past midnight, you have to wake up early, and yet you can be completely focused at your code editor without worrying about ANYTHING, not worrying about the things you have to do before you go to bed, not worrying about the things you have to do the next day, not worrying about anything. That kind of focus is GOLDEN, and it has helped me write huge pieces of well written code in very little time.

I suspect that largely depends on the subject.

I focus when I'm under pressure. For me, MJ would remove all that pressure, so I couldn't care less about code.

Different people, different results.

I see where you're coming from, but that's what I use coffee for. Nothing like a good cup of joe to key me in.

You have a choice in life:

You can smoke dope, get stoned, start dozens of unfinished projects in Ruby or Scala or Haskell or whatever you've just read about, wear bad clothes and think you're doing something worthwhile just because you're up to date with xkcd and know how to jailbreak your iPhone.

Or you can learn a real language - one with braces, as God intended - preferably C# but Java is acceptable, build a business and hang out on yachts with beautiful women covered in cocaine. It's your choice.

LOL!

btw python is so much better than java, took me a day to get into it, no braces no garbage...

also i have a smoke every so often. preferably after work. and yes, people who think it makes you stupid have no clue what they are talking about. it really makes me more creative an HUNGRY

The second. Two. 2! I choose 2!

If I was in the latter situation, I wouldn't be sitting around on Hacker News poking fun at pot heads. So, how are those braces working out for you? ;-)

Ew, cocaine.

Yeah, real .NET programmers use heroin. Everyone knows that

I read the article in question, and it said that marijuana didn't have much effect on "chronic" marijuana users. I suspect that if you smoke pot occasionally, it will totally destroy your programming ability while high.

You need to look at this study carefully. Essentially, it says if you are a pothead, pot smoking isn't so bad for your cognitive skills. But, that isn't to say that the long term effects of pot didn't already impair you... it just means that once you are used to it, it doesn't hurt you to be smoking it.

The article makes perfect sense really. There is certainly such a thing as a "high-functioning alcoholic." That doesn't mean anyone can get drunk and work well, or that alcohol helps you work. It just means alcoholics have a tolerance.

It might well be this article for those interested in reading it themselves: - "Effects of Acute Smoked Marijuana on Complex Cognitive Performance" - Neuropsychopharmacology section of the medical journal Nature

URL: http://www.nature.com/npp/journal/v25/n5/full/1395716a.html

I havn't in a little over a year now. Current company drug tests and I enjoy a paycheck more than I enjoy getting high.

That said, I do very much enjoy it and have had some "breakthroughs" related to coding projects while high. Moderation is key, it can be great for helping you think about things differently, but if you overdo it, you can certainly do more harm than good.

I don't and for me, most breakthroughs come as a result of letting questions/ideas jump around in my brain for a bit of time.

I used to attribute it to activities that I'd be doing when I have the breakthrough... but I've realized, its not the activities. It's just enough time to process things differently.

I use it. For me, it can help coding with regards to formulating new ideas and approaches to problems. It can also cause me to become so engrossed in these that I get distracted from the real work so I have to second the age-old "moderation is key".

I have always been firmly against company drug testing. How is that legal? Also, you could be a severe alcoholic or on huge amounts of prescribed medications and that is just fine?

Well, yeah. The government said those are OK, and the government is never wrong. They have people with guns that say so.

It's not legal for a company to force you to be drug tested. You can always say "no" and walk away. Unfortunately, it is in almost every state totally legal for your employer to fire you for absolutely no reason, so long as they aren't discriminating against for you on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, or disability.

Interesting, I assumed it was legal for them to force you (unintentional Canadian ignorance on the issue).

Thanks for the clarification!

Just to be clear: I'm saying they can effectively force you, in the sense that they can fire you if you don't comply.

I've been an avid smoker longer than a programmer; although, these days I get high as means for keeping my left-hemisphere in check, which helps new ideas breathe, but the biggest reason I keep smoking is to forget. Forgetting is good if tend to worry to much, while psychologists typically have an entire lexicon for the word anxiety, which is more or less a state invoked from worry. Getting high helps me forget all those nouns/pronouns for a brief period and just sort of float around.

These days I can make an 1/8th (~3.4 grams) last a good +2 weeks.

Believe it or not though, my life long dream is to move to India, get in contact with a spiritual guru, and live in the now for as long as I can.

Only to relax. I know some architects / senior coders who can concentrate better while high, but for me remembering what you did / thought about several minutes ago is more important than unnatural thinking.

Maybe it just takes more practice...

This should be a poll, you're unlikely to get a comment from most people on this issue.

Use http://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll to create a new poll.

AFAICS he doesn't have enought karma to create a poll

But one was created (though the options are not what I would have picked): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=509693

It might only be giving you the illusion of helping. Can you benchmark test yourself with and without it?

Indeed. Programmer productivity is nearly impossible to measure, and so subjective, how would you even perform this kind of test?

That being said, I'm 100% sure that I'm far less productive after smoking pot, and I suspect that any reasonable measure of programmer productivity would show the same results for just about everyone.

But I'm also less productive after a few beers, or while watching a movie, or having sex, or eating dinner, or riding my bike. There's more to life than cranking out code. Marijuana feels good and is mostly harmless. Enjoy in moderation!

I have found that my productivity suffers when I lead a less balanced life. Since we programmers tend to fixate, it can be challenging to remember to take a break once in a while. Sometimes, if you don't over-indulge, the things that impair productivity can, in the long run, make your productivity more sustainable.

Or maybe I'm just rationalizing getting high and having fun ;)

A good sleep and a little bit of exercise helps too. I went for a blade yesterday and it really cleared the head, was exhilarating and I could think a bit about life.

I agree. Up to a point, it seems to have a beneficial effect. Especially in design, perhaps not so much when it comes to data modeling and logic.

Ironically, while you're probably correct in programming design, I'm a national master in chess(which requires reasoning and logic), and I know about a handful of chess masters(FM/IM/GM's) that actually smoke dope. Allegedly, it helps to mentally slow the game down and reason each move out into their potential move branches. In the time allowed, they're able to visualize moves several iterations on down and concentrate better on mentally traversing them to figure out their best move.

Sounds like they could be using it to meditate.

Cannabis has been used for thousands of years as an aid to meditation in various Eastern cultures, e.g The Saddhu tradition in India.

Meditation has not only made me a better coder, but has really helped with my anxiety and depression.

I found this book most interesting:-

http://headstuffbooks.com/titles/cannabis_and_meditation

Just ordered it....Not my field, but I'm told users in Canada regard this book as the dog's? Anyone else dabbling with the subject matter?

Also, to those here who beleive that it can't possibly help with creativity, try it, you will not be disappointed. I find it hard NOT to be creative on it, it's just that kind of drug. If you have too much or use it badly then obviously it's not going to help, but as long as you use it responsibly, it's a great drug for helping you get back on track on those days when thinking about coding is the last thing you want to do. It gives impetus, creativity, stamina, and in some cases, very strong objectivity about your output too.

Lurkio

Finally a reason to speak:) Yes, I too am an avid chess player and find weed aids my focus a lot. I'm by far a master, but weed helps me build a greater general sense of game as a kind of mental landscape. It's interesting. Coding too is a lot easier to get into and it helps me be more creative with the solutions I choose,more experimental.

I've heard about that weed book before - do you actually own a copy yourself? Any good? Or the other book on that link you gave, about meditation and creativity?

Lurkio

Whenever I smoke marijuana I just want to eat and watch movies. So even though it's impossible to measure, for me it has an absolute negative effect in terms of coder productivity.

Maybe that's just the way you grew used to smoking, just sit down and relax. If you try doing other activities while high you'll probably see some interesting results.

Yeah, make this a Poll, and I might 'fess up. Did I say that?

Yes, I do (although I just ended up in a new country, where I haven't figured out where to get any yet).

I don't smoke a lot of it, and quantifying the benefits that I receive from smoking marijuana is a bit difficult because they're rather abstract, and (at least for me), the effects of the plant vary from use to use. They don't vary widely, but there's a decent range of effects, which has a lot to do with the strain of the plant, but I digress.

When thinking about high-level design of a project that doesn't have anything put to code yet, I find that marijuana can help me visualize how things should fit together.

When doing exploratory programming at a REPL, I tend to try out more new things, put feelers out in a larger portion of the libraries of whatever language I'm using. I think this is objectively measurable - I may take a stab at it in the future, but I'm unable to right now.

When reading new things, or studying up on languages with unfamiliar paradigms, low doses of marijuana make it easier for me to snap my brain out of "language x" mode and into "new language y" mode.

When coding things in a language that I'm very familiar with, it makes it easier to get in "the zone". Not so much with languages that I don't already know like the back of my hand.

In general, I get a creativity boost from marijuana - and I'm fairly certain that it's more than a placebo.

Everything is not rosy though; If I smoke too much marijuana, my anti-social tendencies tend to be more pronounced. I'll have problems speaking casually with people, and my short-term memory will be shot.

I don't like smoking it with people who stare at the wall when they're high. It doesn't make me want to do that at all - it makes me want to do something creative right now. Play music, code, paint, something.

But yeah. I use marijuana in moderation. I know how I feel at different dosage levels, and I know what my limits are. I also know that a lot of people who use it turn it into more of a lifestyle than a part of a life, which is rarely a good thing to do with anything.

My brain is the organ that keeps the lights on, writes the codes, designs the presentations and pays the bills.

I have no interest in messing with it.

I actively avoid caffeine when the going gets tough.

That's akin to saying "My legs are what gives me locomotion. I don't want to create stress and tear their muscle tissue by exercising. It will just mess with them."

Please note that I'm not taking one side or another, but caffeine has been shown to provide more benefits than harms in moderation.

I also gave up caffeine in university. I found myself drinking bottles of Mountain Dew during lectures and still feeling drowsy. So I gave it up.

After two weeks of fatigue and lethargy, I was fine. I slept better, and was more alert.

But most of all, I gained the ability to actually abuse caffeine. If I need to work through the night and still function the next day, all it takes is a single can of Doctor Pepper or a cup of tea. It's like a super power.

I'd suggest a different analogy:

I don't go for a four hour hike the day before I run a marathon.

I use weed rarely nowadays, but have consumed my fair share. The effects differ a little bit per person, but in general:

Weed makes you think you're sharp and insightful, but it actually makes you really stupid and slow. You forget things constantly. Using before work is only interesting if your job is mind-numbingly dull.

Some more facts:

1. A single joint has about the effect of 4 glasses of alcohol, or 2-3 cups of coffee. But it's a downer instead of an upper, making you more relaxed.

2. Marijuana is the Spanish name used by advertisers against the use because it sounds more foreign and dangerous.

3. Propaganda in the 50s (as lobbied by alcohol producers) gave weed it's bad name.

PS: I live in the Netherlands

Great facts, but do you have references?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7O4Sa8sGXk This video refers to "experts", but I am pretty sure you can find more of the same via Google.

And apparantly the propaganda was in the 20s-30s.

I do, nearly every day.

I don't drink caffeine (nor alcohol or any other types of drugs/stimulants).

It does a few things for me, chief among them is that it calms my ADHD and makes it easier to focus on things, specifically the mundane boilerplate shit.

My best designs/architecture have come from work sessions where I've been burning the midnight oil, to make a poor pun. I can't tell you why, other than the abstraction is infinitely easier to grok.

It does make me lazy though, but in someways there are benefits to that. For instance, I work hard to find easier ways to write code.

I wouldn't recommend it for anyone, but I grew up smoking weed. Also, quality plays a HUGE factor.

Moderation is key.

moderation is key?

But you you smoke nearly every day.....

You can consume alcohol nearly every day and still drink in moderation.

Yes, you can smoke everyday moderately. About a bowl will do it.

Blunts, bongs are overdoing it.

It sounds like use in moderation might make it easier to rapidly leap around the conceptual problem space, perhaps reaching apparently unrelated insights. This tallies with the stereotype of being good for creativity.

At higher doses, this would be overshadowed by the negative effects (leaping too far around the problem space, into nonsensical ideas, deleterous effects on memory and motivation.)

I presume an experienced user could differentiate, judge their own reactions and moderate accordingly. I don't believe I could.

Not I. Cannot stand the stench of it.

I smoked extensively for years between the ages of 16-22.

To begin with it increased my creativity a lot (thinking outside the box), I came up with a lot of (objectively verified) really genius pencil art.

Then, with habitual use, creativity levelled off to where it probably was before I started smoking, but, importantly, with creativity and general joy dipping noticeably in dry periods. I believe this is caused by artificially high dopamine production from the smoking, conversely resulting in lower general dopamine levels when sober.

Also, I am one of those persons for whom pot impairs social interaction. I felt increasingly alienated and only felt 'normal' after two-three days of sobriety. Basically I came to enjoy sobriety more, which was the direct reason I gave it up.

As far as coding is concerned, pot makes coding sessions fun and enjoyable so it probably helps you sit down at the keyboard, but I am sure it hurts the output (of the code, it may help with very high-level design). Pot makes you interested in investigating little details, but makes it difficult to keep a consistent overview of things.

Jeff Atwood apparently doesn't:

http://twitter.com/codinghorror/status/1305109744

I agree with him 100%. This is a bit of a disappointment. Hacker News is very slowly going the way of reddit. Very slowly.

I hope we can eventually keep this in check.

I don't. Hackers have long had a hippy element to their culture and plenty of people on here clearly find it of benefit. It's a valid topic to discuss.

Who made this Jeff person the thought police anyway? Does he have a rival site or something...?

Now we're accusing Jeff to be the thought police. That's definitely not Redditish.

Plenty of people on this site get all bent out of shape about copyright violation or ad-blockers, but obviously not illegal drug use, crude swearing, or pornography. If you're just going to shout "censorship!" and "thought police!" at anybody who thinks differently than you and get upvoted for it here, then I am also questioning the mission here.

I've been suspecting that his recent blog post "The value of downvoting" to be an insidious attempt at getting more PR for his site, stackoverflow by dissing HN.

I've see marijuana have a very negative effect on my friends work, (whether they realized it or not) and that was enough to make me not ever try it.

This is the first time I have commented. Please don't do this: you are increasing your risk of schizophrenia by smoking dope. If you only saw what that does to people and those around them. My brother suffers from this and it is terrible for him. You can all do the searches if you want to find evidence for the increase in risk.

"my brain is my second favourite organ", keep it that way.

Schizophrenia is only a risk if you start smoking dope at an early age, before your brain is fully developed, and this is true not only for marijuana but also for pretty much all psychoactive drugs (Ritaline, anyone?). Consuming psychoactive substances at an early age is never a good idea.

For the record, schizophrenia has never been associated to people who started smoking marijuana /after/ adolescence, and it has even show therapeutic properties for a number of brain disorders, such as Alzheimer's.

I should add that unfortunately many youngsters and adolescents smoke pot and that should absolutely not happen, the same way alcohol and cigarettes are prohibited for people under 18/21.

Correlation versus causation. Cannabis use and psychotoic disorders like schizophrenia are definitely correlated, but last I heard there is no evidence of causation (Hall et al., 2000). If my information is outdated, please let me know.

Personally, I think it's far more likely that schizophrenics, or pre-schizophrenics, are drawn to cannabis as a form of self-medication.

BMJ 2002;325:1199 ( 23 November ) http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/325/7374/1199 here is the conclusion paragraph: Conclusions: Cannabis use is associated with an increased risk of developing schizophrenia, consistent with a causal relation. This association is not explained by use of other psychoactive drugs or personality traits relating to social integration.

* WARNING: Heavy drug material and offtopic both in one message. Don't complain if your Internet etiquette sensors blow up. *

I've never smoked marijuana but I did take DXM (~1.5-2.0mg/lb) several times. Certainly, during DXM trip I would have absolutely no concentration or creativity. However, after it I found that the after-effect effectively destroys two of the great challenges to thinking:

- Fear

- Close-mindness

I might not have been able to go through a chapter of Intro to Algorithms because I was scared, or concentrate on a bug for five hours because of fear but after DXM I could. I guess it increased my attention span. I remember I was learning about RBT tress and noticing how I am not freaking out because I don't understand stuff at first and how my mind was a blank piece of paper where anything complex could be written.

There was no frustration that usually comes when I meet a problem in the thinking process, only curiosity. That helps.

Oh, and it also healed my suicidal depression so I guess not being dead helps concentration and creativity a lot.

Holy mother! Dextromethorphan and pot do not even compare, in terms of effects. That said, I am glad you found it to be of use. My several experiences with DXM did not have such positive effects, so I have learned something here.

It's also worth noting that DXM is a dissociative drug, and like all dissociatives (ketamine, PCP, etc.) it causes measurable brain damage each and every time you do it. This effect is compounded if you don't take a break in between usages. This is in no way a condemnation; just be sure you measure your risks and benefits accordingly.

There is no way you can take it as often as pot. It's not a daily drug, of course. For me, I use it about several times a year. A couple of months is usually enough for clutter and stress to gather down so I can clear it all up with a disassociative.

Also, on permanent brain damage, see DXM FAQ (http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/dxm/faq/dxm_side_effects.sht...).

So far (about a year of usage) I find that the positive outweighs the negative.

PS. I'm also learning how to "astral project" (I put this in quotes because I just think it's a natural disassociative, not a spiritual experience). So far, I found AP to be much more powerful (albeit much shorter too) than the second plateau of DXM and I intend to stop drinking disguisting syrup completely as soon as I gain enough practice with AP.

I've tried, but I simply can't. I sit down with a text editor and get stuck immediately. I think it's because too much of my knowledge is encoded in state-dependent learning.

(Another user making a new account to answer this one anonymously. This is not a post you want to come up when someone googles your name!)

You probably shouldn't care about people that care that you smoke once in a while. People like to think that there are millions of dollars sitting around in the hands of conservatives waiting to be handed out to people that don't do drugs, but that's just not true. These people are a tiny majority. Everyone has done some sort of drug.

Anyway, I'm happy to admit to my experience with weed. It makes me sleepy. I haven't really been able to obtain enough to really experiment with it, however... but I hope to rectify this situation in the future.

Wow, even after saying that, I still have a job. Amazing!

I confess that I find it surprising that some people here on HN freely admit using Marijuana. Worst-case scenario, couldn't YC be subpoenaed by the feds and requested to provide each user's email and IP address?

I know this sounds a bit too draconian, but didn't the last administration try to subpoena Google?

In most parts of California, it's effectively legal. While it's still technically against the federal law, the state law says that anyone with a prescription can buy it at a store and smoke it in their home.

Getting a prescription is as easy as picking a doctor off a list, paying for an appointment, and saying, "I get headaches. Pot helps."

It's available, reasonably priced, and you can have it without being hassled by the authorities. As long as you're not a total idiot about it, it's pretty much just another alcohol. No one cares if you smoke pot on the weekends, as long as you do good work.

We used to have a boss who obviously was into drugs. extremely volatile, and he'd often email 'the team' at weekends, with long incoherent rants about how badly we're all doing.

California does seem to have a culture of pot smoking for some reason.

I wouldn't go as far as saying California has a culture of pot smoking... just as I wouldn't say that New York has a culture of being assholes.

It sounds like he had problems above and beyond his drug use.

I've known plenty of non-drug-using assholes. ;)

I had no idea. What kind of stores do you buy it in?

http://medicalcannabiscaregivers.org

As far as I know it's not illegal anywhere in the United States (yes, making that assumption here) to admit to using it, talk/write about using it or publish information on growing or using it. That is what freedom of speech provides us.

Acting on any of those things is a different story.

Are you high? The only class of individuals that don't freely admit facts about their life in a public forum are politicians. . .are you a politician? Otherwise, getting that paranoid over some form of punishment is beyond rational.

That's your opinion. Mine is different. Invoking the principle of least privilege, if some piece of information on your personal life is of no use to the point you're trying to make, why reveal it? You gain nothing, and there a chance (though remote) that it will be used against you at some point in the future.

A thought experiment: suppose you were an alcoholic... would you admit it on HN? If not, why's that so? Is it illegal? Are you a politician? Maybe it's because of the social stigma associated with it. Well, guess what, not everyone shares the same values you do and in some more conservative circles, smoking pot would carry a stigma as well. That could harm you when looking for a job, for instance. I have seen that happening.

Maybe I am paranoid, but better safe than sorry, right?

Sure, they could. It would be a worthless case that's not worth the state's money to prosecute, however. Possession is hard to prosecute, and admitting to once using some weed on the Internet is even harder. ("Yeah, I just said I smoked weed so that people would think I was cool." Case dismissed.)

I suppose they could get a search warrant for your place, but this is so exceedingly unlikely that it is not worth worrying about. Pot is technically illegal, but only the most flagrant displays of use are worth the government's time to prosecute. (And, it's decriminalized in many places now. Not everyone is in the US.)

You're right. To be honest, I am not too concerned with the state trying to prosecute me for having smoked a couple of joints in college. The state could try to do it, but I don't see what it would gain exactly. I am more concerned about how confessing (hypothetically speaking) to have smoked weed in the past could harm my career in the future.

For example, four friends of mine started a laser company after the dot-com crash in 2001. They needed $25 million of venture funding, and they got it. However, some (if not all) the VC firms hired private investigators to conduct a background check on my friends. The PI's researched and scrutinized their entire lives (both professional and personal). The PIs were so good at the job it was almost nauseating. Make no mistake about it, this kind of info can be used to find your weaknesses, and can be used against you. In fact, they used that info against my friends with devastating effects as soon as the company had some problems. It was not pretty.

So let's say your friends admitted to smoking weed, and the paranoid VCs pulled out. That just means some other VCs would have invested instead.

(As another example, I have long hair. That means there are certain jobs that I probably couldn't get, as some companies have corporate policies against that. Do I care? No. I don't need those companies for anything.)

"That just means some other VCs would have invested instead."

I would say that would have worked if you wanted to build a software company. This was early 2001, the entire Tech bubble had just collapsed. It isn't very easy to find venture capital when you need tens of millions of dollars to afford world-class lasers, electronics and clean rooms. The scale and ambition of the project constrain you because there aren't many sources of venture capital of that magnitude.

I don't have long hair, but I wouldn't want to work for a company who had a policy against it either. Such a policy would only make it clear that the company had the wrong values and priorities.

I used to, but its been just over a decade now. For me the creative effects were never realized. It just made me dumb. After my first year at university my average mark was 2.9. Then I quit pot and got 4.0 for 9 nine quarters in a row. Your mileage may vary.

The comments here are interesting. Weed seems to have different effects on different people(not enough data to make definite conclusions though). I've experimented with it when i was 15-16, then i stopped, and its been 3 years now and i've had maybe 4-5 joints since then. I don't know what the effects it has on programming would be, but i could guess that i would be in a more relaxed/lazy mood, and in that mood im usually very creative, but not concentrated enough to actually be productive. Im usually relaxed/lazy, so i probably wont be less productive if i start smoking again.

I use marijuana. I also use tea. And tomato juice. I'd say it does affect your coding, to the worse. However, it makes your creative thinking and problem-solving more enjoyable, which is a good thing, and positively gives you a boost.

So when I actually sit down to code something I designed prior to this, I won't use it, it makes me slow and narrows the attention scope, which makes me paranoid, which makes me go through my code a couple more times, and definitely more than needed to catch all the trivial bugs.

This is what drugs do to you: http://www.trinity.edu/jdunn/spiderdrugs.htm

I think that says more about caffeine than anything, though. It's hard to generalize about drugs as a whole in a meaningful way. While marijuana probably has a neutral-to-slightly-negative effect on programming, and alcohol and opiates certainly do, piracetam/aniracetam/oxiracetam (for example) can has a pretty positive effect.

Besides, none of us are spiders. (Right?)

I'm pretty sure this is the Spiders on Drugs reference you were looking for: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHzdsFiBbFc

I don't drink, smoke, do drugs, and a cup of tea is about the limit of my caffeine intake.

My brain is very precious to me, and if I do anything that might damage it, there's no way to fix it, or get a new one, so I try to stay away from anything that could kill brain cells, rewire things, etc...

But, that's just me. I'm pro legalization, etc... People should be free to get high if they want.

I don't use it. On the few occasions I have it has made me turned me into a completely unproductive zombie.

Still think it should be legalized but not because I like it or want to use it... it just makes economic and legal sense.

I have used chronic for several years and as a developer I find that it provides three important benefits, and I believe that for many developers it could provide the same but with important caveats and considerations.

1. It helps me get a peaceful full nights sleep, which for me is approximately 7 hours, with and clearheaded thoughts the next day

2. As an aid to creativity, but about only 10% or less of the time while working. My mind is getting stronger and so I can now be directly productive while high, however I tend instead to take notes and later revisit those notes while not high for speedier production

3. As an aid to learning, but perhaps only 10% or less of the time while studying. Rather I regularly review difficult material lightly while high in order to experience the benefits of heightened abstract thought

Very important notes:

-- There is a long process to the mind learning about and how to benefit from something as intoxicating as chronic. You won't know many things about it and yourself until you've had a lot of experience

-- Chronic is a strong sedative, many people fall asleep easily when they are first getting experience with it

-- It is very important to only smoke the female plant. The male plant has a lot of negative effects and can cause you to be groggy similar to over-drinking, and the positive effects are in my opinion not enough to warrant the negative effects

-- It's very important to take notes of creative ideas, since your memory for specifics is likely to be fuzzy

-- When approaching new concepts and abstracts

-- If you care about your productivity and learning, wait until you've gained lots of experience before trying to accomplish or study when you're high, otherwise a lot valuable time can be wasted. With a bit of experience it because possible to learn which creative and learning experiences can be directly improved from smoking

-- Use a vaporizer. It is not 100% safe as others have claimed, but it significantly reduces risks, as well as reduces all forms of odor, red eyes, etc, and the dosage can be controlled better

My programming capability has become so significantly better from smoking, but legal and medical dangers shouldn't be taken lightly. People who already know they are susceptible to self-destructive behavior need to realize that this is a drug that can sedate you heavily and it's important to learn when you can and cannot take it due to pressing work.

But as a way to improve your programming skills and learn abstract concepts (functional programming, linear algebra, and so on) and connecting the dots between fields of study its a godsend.

Plus, you'll just be happier :-)

I created a poll for this for those who are worried about privacy: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=509693

'use'? somehow it seems so innocuous that 'use' is way to strong a word that said, not me. marijuana makes me stupid to the point i forget i have muscles.

Nope. A glass or two of 'vino rosso' with dinner, or a 'spritz' with friends once in a while.

YOU ARE ALL GAY; BURN IN HELL

Though I smoke Marlboro Lights but still I hate Marijuana or weed.

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