Cannabis and coding
I just watched a documentary called Grass is Greener on Netflix. It talks about may things surrounding cannabis. How politicians demonised it despite scientific evidences, how minorities were targeted by anti-cannabis laws...
However, throughout the documentary, we hear a lot of testimonies from various artists such as jazz musicians, hip-hop and rap performers and songwriters. Different generations of artists find themselves more creative when they are high. Obviously, the question has to be asked:
Have you ever coded while being high? What was the result?
Note: Please do not get political on this topic. My question concerns the effect on cannabis on your productivity as a developer. Your views about whether cannabis should be legalised or not are irrelevant here. Thank you :)
Top comments (32)
I've heard the phrase "Think high, work sober" and I basically agree with the premise.
If you're on a deadline or have to immediately release production-ready code, it's probably not a good idea to put yourself into a state of "impairment" before working. You should be as clear as possible to do your best and most diligent work.
However, if you're merely thinking through an issue or approach, changing your perspective and mind-space might put you into a more creative flow. It's likely that you'll make connections or go down a different path than you would have otherwise. This is ideal when you're on your "own time" and have the time to implement any ideas you might have later.
I did the "think high" thing quite a bit when I was younger. I'm not much of a smoker these days, but I appreciate how it "trained" my brain. Not long ago, I was watching how the water flows in a creek - just zoned out on it. I got back to my desk and refactored a massive golang backend into 4 micros tethered by rabbit topics that can hold up to any chaos monkey.
From watching the water.
It's the same way things would click in my think high days, and it still happens pretty often - what, 15-20 years later.
The biggest advantage for me is the ability to hyper focus on one thing at a time. It helps me lock in and get into Flow easier. One of those skills I've developed over the years is getting stoned, and then immediately jump into a task, not allowing myself any time to get distracted. You've got to actively work towards not being the "Lazy Stoner"
Most recent issue I had was one night I was working on a project, fixing things adding features, etc only to find at the end of the night that I forgot to
git pullin work I'd already done and every single merge conflict was essentially the exact same work I just did.P.S.
My smoking is on my time working on my projects, not at work, for obvious reasons.
Some of the most prolific thinkers and doers of the past century were users. Carl Sagan was a user, Bob Marley was a user, heck - Queen Victoria was a user.
If you can produce while using, it's between you and yourself.
If you can't produce while using, you probably shouldn't use while working.
Not sure it has to be more complicated than that...
If you live in a jurisdiction where it's legal, and you have no contractual obligations, and you want to find out whether or not it's good for your productivity or creativity, you probably shouldn't show up to work high for the first time. Instead, experiment on your own time (with plenty of buffer before you need to get back to the office).
Don't do anything to risk legal trouble.
Didn't know Carl Sagan was a user :o
Thank you for your input.
He wrote a pro-cannabis paper under the pseudonym "Mr. X" in the late 60s.
bigthink.com/mind-brain/carl-sagan...
I'll try it for science.
My man! 💪🤟
So I did, and it was pretty much in line with my expectations for a downer. Great for drowning out distracting and stressful thoughts, so I can see why it would help with creative tasks that require more 'feeling' than reasoning as it can really help get into the zone.
As for my particular situation, I was having trouble getting Tensorflow to work with Haskell on a Jupyter Notebook. Thanks to a more relaxed state of mind I managed to dive far deeper into the problem than I normally would have as it didn't stress me out as much. However, I did not actually manage to fix it, and I think it may just be practically impossible due to conflicting version requirements. In a sober state I would have given up sooner, and thus wasted less time.
I forgot some details:
Yes, and it usually helps, but not all the time. A little bit can help you relax and think clearer, but too much can make it harder to concentrate. Depends on the strain and a bunch of variables. Definitely doesn't help for meetings.
It also depends how familiar you are with the domain - if it's new ground, a clearer head is probably better. If you're doing stuff you're pretty familiar with, it shouldn't be a detriment. Keep in mind that you'd get basically the same effect as going for a run on your lunch break - the 'runners high' is caused by endocannabinoids like anandamide (which acts like Delta-9 THC on the CB1 and CB2 receptors).
I know people, coworkers, etc who can have a beer or two if we go out to lunch and still be able to work, but personally I hate combining alcohol and coding. Weed though, hell yeah.
Please keep the comments related to the question I asked in the article :) Thank you.
NB: I was not making any scientific claims about cannabis. I was simply recapitulating some of the content of the documentary. These are not my views. But I thought I made that clear enough in my article.
I am not sure if we can actually consider cannabis benefiting our health. But I've tried CBD oil, and it helps me during a headache and insomnia. I've tried different medications, but only CBD could help me. The more I read reviews of CBD, the more I feel confident that it actually works, and not just a placebo effect. Now, I only use CBD oil, and I even found some vape pens with CBD oil on knockoutcbd.com and ordered a few samples there. I cannot wait for them to be delivered, and finally, try them.
A range of CBD products are used in health solutions. A further product list of CBD possible contamination from heavy metals or chemicals, such as residual solvents. CBD company websites. I observe a dispensary near me available so potential buyers can check out a product before making their purchase. These are best for headache and insomnia.
I was gonna write a class, but then I got high.
I was gonna git-rebase, but then I got high.
Now the build is failin' and I know why.
Because I got high.
Because I got high.
Because I got high.
I was working on a personal project recently, had been struggling for a few days with something and just could not get it to work.
Had a pretty heavy smoke session with my mates one night and basically went to bed and dreamed about the code I had been staring at for a week... and I spotted the issue.
I woke up and thought "that can't be it, there's no way I can have just dreamed that", but when I turned on my laptop and made the change everything worked as it should!
I'm a strong believer that weed isn't an impairment like some people in this thread are saying, but actually helps me unlock a part of my brain which is very useful in my line of work.
Personally, I medicate at night before bed so I can get a full night's sleep so I can code and be more productive during the day. Although I will say when I was learning JS I did an experiment one day. I took a few tokes and dived into my lessons. Javascript made more sense that day. I think it is for the simple reason that THC makes new and different neuron connections that your brain doesnt make when it is "sober". But as with everything...all things in moderation.
I don't know if in reality it helps or not, I haven't ever tried to look at this objectively, maybe I should. But it definitely feels like it helps to see things from a different angle, a broader perspective. More of a 'meta' tool to think not only about what approaches to use to solve a particular problem, but also whether that is a legitimate problem or not (maybe there's something I'm missing), and also whether this is the particular problem you should be solving right now - is it actually in the critical path (and the critical path to what)?
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