Comment by throwaway25173 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway25173 | Hacker News Reader

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As a frequent smoker, I'm very curious about this. I'm a grad student but I've interned at Google Mountain View a couple times. At Google I had a couple intern friends who also smoked but I would absolutely NEVER consider admitting to being a frequent user among coworkers I wasn't outside-of-work friends with, as none of them ever seemed to talk about having drug experiences (other than alcohol/caffeine) so I feared they'd think less of me for it. I'm sure most were likely in favor of marijuana legalization as most of their politics seemed to go that way, but none of them would ever openly admit to using it regularly. (This seems similar to the attitude on HN, hence why I'm on a throwaway account while admitting to be a frequent smoker.) As such, I found myself agreeing with GP, that the article seemed quite off-base. But of course this is definitely all anecdotal evidence - I wouldn't be surprised if there were teams even at Google where people openly admit to smoking weed regularly.

(Throwaway)

"[...] as none of them ever seemed to talk about having drug experiences [...]"

These are your work colleagues for goodness's sake, when would that sort of thing come up?

Not the OP, but when you share the same room and breath the same air for 8+ hours five days per week with some random people (your work colleagues) you tend to play the "social animal" part and get into conversations that go beyond the next sprint or the latest Rails bug. I find it normal.

Yes, I still fear stigma. Having a more carefree friend (roommate in college) that had the same internship as me helped me meet others, though I keep the actual act of consumption to myself. I fear being judged, but I think that will dull with time, especially in places like CA, WA, CO.

Long story shorter and more relevant: I've picked up a knack for knowing what "hot topics" I can talk about with certain coworkers or friends (or most of all, family). I certainly err conservatively.

As for HN: I've noticed the same trend here. It seems really mixed and it is kind of enjoyable that people still feel comfortable expressing themselves. Reddit has it's dissenters but most people don't say much beyond "I support legalization" even if they disagree with cannabis usage. I've come into more contact with "pot makes you waste your life" types around here, and I'm okay with that. I don't need anyone to judge me, finding happiness in life is an extreme priority for me, so "haters gonna hate" I guess. (But you'll note that my username here on HN is not attached to my real name in anyway as far as I know).

But more directly to the point, if it were to come up at work, I wouldn't have a problem with admitting to using or conversing about legalization. Via my internship my team knows that they can rely on me and I think my work stands for itself. And most of all, I'm really hopeful that my employer isn't interested in my personal life beyond my work. Frankly, if anything else, I've noticed a shocking amount of presumption that I must have smoked because I'd been to college...

I doubt people are presuming that you smoked because you've been to college. That's not a common assumption, at least in my circles.

Regular pot smokers have a certain vibe. Not necessarily red eyes, but a way of being very casual and slightly disconnected. If you disagree with me, then think about how you 'just know' when someone is a pot smoker. There are subtle but telling mannerisms.

Which tells me that long-term pot use has an effect on personality.

Wow, could you perpetuate silly stereotypes more? I already gave an example of one way I notice other people might.

Very casual and disconnected? Red eyes? Yeah, when I'm high my eyes are incredibly red, but I could be high at 10PM and you wouldn't know at 8:30AM.

You realize you suffer from confirmation bias? You know a spacey stoner and so you think everyone who gets high must be casual and disconnected? Let me guess, I must also be dull, inattentive, absentminded?

Here's a tip for you: you have absolutely no idea whether the people you meet smoke pot or not, except for maybe a fringe subset who 'act like stoners' and meet your own preconceived notions. Even then, you are probably wrong a lot of the time.

There are no universal 'telling mannerisms' of pot smokers. Quite a lot of pot smokers are anything-but-casual, hyper-focused, driven individuals. Not just programmers, but executives, politicians, power brokers, athletes, lawyers, surgeons, and so on.

If you disagree with me, it implies that you don't have significant experience with the industry described in this article. (Not the tech industry. The other one.)

Anectodally speaking, I've met kids who smoked regularily or even sold pot, and the were astute and interconnected. Try to call every pot smoker you know into your mind and check whether they seem casual and slightly disconnected. If it doesn't help, we'll come over and hook up the JTAG debugger and see what's wrong, maybe...maybe I've been doing to much computers lately.

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