
Silicon Valley is high on innovation. And pot - hansy
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-28/silicon-valley-is-high-on-innovation-dot-and-pot
======
edw519
Wow. I had no idea.

I have been to college and have had many great times since then with all sorts
of artificial stimulation. To this day, I really look forward to weekends and
can't imagine a world without (my drug of choice) beer.

But I have never done any of this while working. No drugs, no alchohol, no
medication, just a rare cup of coffee.

I have been programming for 34 years in startups, small businesses, and
enterprises. And I'm doing my best work ever right now. And I've done all of
it naturally; I don't think I would have made it this long any other way.

If my back or wrists hurt, I get up and move.

If I'm sleepy, I sleep.

If I'm hungry, I eat.

If I can't figure something out, I either knock off or work on something else.

The idea of popping the artificial help cherry has always terrified me. I
never wanted to sacrifice my natural soul for the sake of any project. I also
have this strange Newtonian belief when it comes to personal energy: "What
goes up, must come down." (And never without a price.)

My most important tools are my mind and my body, so they always come first,
before any emergency, deadline, or impasse. The crisis du jour will soon be
gone, but I'll still be cranking along like the Energizer Bunny.

What I do is a marathon, not a sprint. I want to be doing this for the rest of
my life, so natural is really the best way for me to go.

Just something to think about before you reach for <whatever>.

~~~
anonthistime
> The most important tools I have are my mind and my body

Alcohol gives you a buzz by destroying your brain cells. There are better (and
smarter) ways to enjoy yourself.

~~~
c1u
>Alcohol gives you a buzz by destroying your brain cells.

That's totally incorrect.

Alcohol INCREASES levels of norepinephrine, the neurotransmitter responsible
for arousal. Elevated norepinephrine also increase impulsivity.

Alcohol REDUCES activity in the prefrontal cortex and temporal cortex. This is
where decision making, rational thought, memory formation, and aggression
suppression is managed.

In large amounts it's much harder on your liver than your brain, but in
moderation it's fine.

~~~
anonthistime
Hm. Thanks for that, I always just assumed that was true.

------
nikcub
In my experience (that is, anecdotally) i'd say the rate of pot use in Silicon
Valley (that is, the tech community) is lower than average. I've seen one
startup where employees openly smoked pot in the office, and i've seen pot
smoked at parties etc. and a handful of friends smoke every now and then, but
it isn't anything near how prevalent pot smoking is in other parts of the USA
and the world.

The big one is smart drugs - Modafinil/Provigil and Nuvegil. I met a sales rep
at a party who told me the bay area was one of the highest selling areas for
Modafinil. That is a bit better than anecdotal evidence that there is
something there. On top of that I know[0] that a lot of users are importing it
from India using online stores.

There are then the pharma stimulants, adderall and ritalin, spread out through
the colleges, where usage rates are high. I knew one person who couldn't wait
for each years batch of interns to show up at his company because he knew at
least some would have a connect to get Adderall.

Then you get the standard illegal class A stimulants, which I don't think are
used any more or less in the tech community than in most other communities of
similar social-economic standing (that is to say, quiet a bit).

[0] Techcrunch wrote about Modafinil in 2008, I was at TC at the time:

[http://techcrunch.com/2008/07/15/how-many-of-our-startup-
exe...](http://techcrunch.com/2008/07/15/how-many-of-our-startup-executives-
are-hopped-up-on-provigil/)

There were a lot of interesting follow-up comments and conversations after it
was published, least not the intro to the sales exec.

~~~
alistairSH
"pot use in Silicon Valley... is lower than average. I've seen ... employees
openly smoked pot in the office, ...pot smoked at parties etc. and a handful
of friends smoke"

Based on my experience in the DC metro area, pot use in Silicon Valley is FAR
higher than here. Aside from a few friends who smoked in the their teens and
early-20s, I don't see it much at all.

Maybe DC is even lower than average because of the high concentration of
government jobs (and the accompanying clearance process)?

~~~
doktrin
By comparison, DC is a pretty conservative area for precisely the reason you
mention.

The fact that so many tech jobs require clearances causes engineers to self-
select in or out depending on their temperaments and leanings, as well as
curbing the behavior outright.

Compare to California, where it is largely decriminalized and possible to
acquire legally and it's no wonder there is a significant difference.

------
cwilson
Like many others will likely comment, I'm a huge advocate of the legalization
of marijuana. I smoked quite a bit of it in my younger years. I could go as
far as saying I was a connoisseur. These days I find it cripples productivity
and turns me into a zombie. I stay away from it.

This leads me to conclude that this article is total shit. I honestly can't
name a single engineer, designer, or writer I know who regularly smokes pot.
Yet this article ends with the following line: "There is a raging culture of
marijuana use among tech workers in Silicon Valley."

How this was allowed to be published is beyond me.

Edit: A better story would have been "How Silicon Valley is high on
innovation. And Adderall."

~~~
nonamegiven
You may not know many people who regularly smoke pot _because_ you "find it
cripples productivity and turns me into a zombie. I stay away from it." You
may be seen by users as either hostile, or at least not obviously friendly to
their activity, so they self select you out of that information.

I think similarly, people who are anti-gay don't _seem_ to know a lot of gay
people, despite the fact that N% of the population are gay.

~~~
bluekeybox
Completely concur with your observation, except your analogy with gay people
(something beyond one's power of choice) is somewhat uncalled for.

~~~
nonamegiven
But in both cases one can choose to let it be known or not. You can choose to
share that you smoke or not, and you can choose to share that you're gay or
not. It's that choice to share information or not that I'm talking about.

------
beatpanda
Episode three million of "People With Money Are Somehow Still Surprised The
Bay Area Is Weird".

See also: the Priceonomics blog post that was _shocked_ to discover that hippy
street kids in Golden Gate Park are pretty content with their lives.

Next up: "Sex Parties? Isn't that dangerous?"

~~~
rdl
Probably far less dangerous than political parties.

~~~
solistice
Likely far more fun too.

------
throwaway1024
Another throwaway here.

As a random anecdotes, I was an opiate addict (Heroin mainly) for the last six
years, while working as an engineer. Not in the Bay area mind you. As weird as
it sounds, opiates help(ed) me focus. I was a very functional addict.

Nowadays I'm clean (have been for the past 9 months), well sort of. I'm on
suboxone. It still helps me focus, helps with my severe depression, and is
legal and literally 50 times cheaper per day.

I have weird brain chemistry however; opiates don't perk most people up. It
makes me laser sharp. However, Heroin has so many other negative effects, it's
not worth it financially and legally.

I don't suggest others follow my path, it's too dangerous and a consequence of
my idiot 16yo self. But I'm doing great nowadays. Just wanted to add my odd
anecdote to the pile.

~~~
danabramov
I know this is silly but is SHA-1 of your StackExchange username
28a0b3fe0e151fefc417ad7d526b99d726d0f319?

~~~
lern_too_spel
Don't answer this question. This is trivial to reverse.

------
sharkweek
I see far more people abusing "focus" drugs like ritalin as opposed to smoking
pot. I guess I have a few friends who still smoke on a regular basis, but most
of my social circle pretty much stopped after college.

I personally can't stand being high. It gave me minor panic attacks and made
me super anti-social. Not my thing, but I'm all for adults making their own
decisions. I can't imagine any top tech company ever enforcing an anti-drug
policy, especially outside of work.

~~~
lcc_tn
I found myself surprised yesterday reading the thread about Harvard[1] when 2
people brought up how much Adderall is abused there, how easy it is to
acquire, etc.

Can you remark on exactly how much medicine otherwise prescribed for ADHD is
abused by people in the valley? Is it 1 out of every 10 employee at Google,
for example? Is it mostly concentrated in startup settings?

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5311168>

~~~
loeg
Might not have very good data from self-reporting, especially in the
workplace.

------
revelation
It seems we have finally solved the mystery that is Adobe Systems
Incorporated.

That said, this article seems to be heavily biased by what is simply local
proximity and highly educated clientele.

~~~
rdl
Also, the San Jose dispensaries are so badly run as a legal experiment -- way
too many, shadiness, etc. Oakland has done a much better job. No one in the
pot industry holds up San Jose as a model.

------
guard-of-terra
“The Silicon Valley data support recent news reports citing some employers who
say they are having a hard time finding candidates that can pass the
preemployment drug test,”

I never lived in North America but I want to say that if I wanted to get a job
and the employer would suggest me to pass a drug test, I would be extremelly
offended and my human rights violated, and I'll tell them to eff off right
away.

It's just so humiliating in my opinion.

I'm a software developer not an airplane pilot.

~~~
Zuph
In most job markets in the US, refusing a pre-employment drug test would make
you literally unemployable, from the crummiest fast-food/retail job, to
middle/upper-level management.

~~~
jes5199
People I know in industries that require drug tests get panicky when they have
to take one, but somehow they never fail them. Apparently the tests aren't
very sensitive, and mostly screen out only those who refuse to take them.

~~~
ferrouswheel
Yup, and you definitely don't want those annoying people who actually value
their privacy and restriction on employer control over their lives!

Drug tests are an effective filter to ensure you have a compliant work force.

------
Myrmornis
Very silly article. Yes lots of programmers, good and bad, smoke pot. No,
there are not very many good programmers who think they can write good code
while high.

~~~
dougk16
For me it's not a matter of coding while high, but pot does make me a more
effective programmer overall. When stuck with a hard problem, smoking allows
my creative side to come out more, and attack the problem from angles that I
couldn't even consider while sober. Sometimes that doesn't work, and I go for
a run. Sometimes that doesn't work, and I just need time.

But pot remains a primary tool in my toolbox for tackling difficult
programming challenges.

~~~
yesimahuman
I call it an "abstraction-enabler" and also appreciate its ability to help me
understand complexity. It's not something I find effective while pounding out
code (alcohol neither): that's what caffeine is for.

~~~
Myrmornis
dougk16, yesimahuman -- you're right, I didn't mean to imply that it couldn't
sometimes be good for thinking about things, including hard things.

------
raverbashing
s/Silicon Valley/California/

If you want to do it fine, I don't do it, but I'm ok with people doing it.

I'm even ok with decriminalizing it.

But don't pretend it's for your wrist pain.

Edit: What about this map "proving" dispensaries are mixed with their
"customers". A simple machine learning algo can split the two and point some
outliners there...

~~~
seanp2k2
>"But don't pretend it's for your wrist pain."

Then let's pass laws so people don't have to pretend.

~~~
csmattryder
But then you won't buy alcohol.

There's people near Capitol Hill that would rather that didn't happen.

~~~
veemjeem
So if they banned nicotine, there would be more people buying alcohol?

~~~
betterunix
No, people like to use alcohol and nicotine in combination.

~~~
nicholassmith
There's also plenty of people who say that you need all three for a proper
party.

------
franze
about the UX of that site: did anybody else experience (latest chrome stable)
the

* "scroll blocking" JS execution on first pageview * jump back up after all JS was loaded

for me it's unbelievable that we finally have really, really, really powerful
JS engines in our browsers, and all we can think of is to make the UX
experience of users who want simple things (like reading an article) worse.

~~~
claudius
"on first pageview" at least seems to imply that you can scroll at all. On
Opera (with Ghostery and AdBlock), it doesn’t work at all and I can read as
far as ‘you can drop by the Palliate’.

So, uh, it's a great article, albeit a little short…

------
DannoHung
I'm in favor of legalization, but I'm very much against public pot smoking
being a thing. Pot smells about 10 times worse than tobacco smoke and tobacco
smoke already smelt awful.

~~~
TillE
I've never seen anyone else with this opinion.

Cigarette smoke is bad. Stale cigarette smoke is worse. Cheap cigar smoke is
disgustingly awful.

But pot smoke? It's not especially bad, and it's not especially strong. Very
distinct, but on the scale of offensiveness fairly low.

Maybe you've been around people smoking with cheap tobacco blunt wraps? I
dunno.

------
arbuge
"Marijuana use is “extremely common” among tech workers, says Mark Johnson,
34, chief executive officer of Zite, based in San Francisco."

I've been in tech for 20 years now and never came across anybody on pot or any
other drugs for that matter. Maybe I'm living in some kind of bubble or
something, but my reaction to the above comment is that he's got a drug
problem in his company.

~~~
jlgreco
Most people who smoke don't tattoo it across their forehead you know.

------
jhonovich
"The long hours sitting at a keyboard can cause back and wrist pain."

Is this really a common problem?

~~~
qompiler
Only if you have a really bad chair and computer desk.

On a side note, drugs are for drug dealers and losers. Only one benefits.

~~~
djcapelis
> On a side note, drugs are for drug dealers and losers. Only one benefits.

So I take it you don't drink alcohol or use caffeine?

~~~
qompiler
I did a while, it only gives me trouble like headaches for coffee and mood
swings with alcohol.

~~~
veemjeem
It's weird how marijuana gets grouped with all the hard drugs when it's far
less toxic than alcohol, nicotine, or caffeine. You can die with less than
250ml of 200 proof alcohol (about 1 cup), 60mg of nicotine (around 60
cigarettes), or 3 grams of caffeine (around 15 bottles of the 5 hour energy
drinks). However, you'd need to consume around 1000lbs of marijuana to kill
yourself. 1000lbs would probably bankrupt most people -- it's around $4M.

I doubt anyone in the modern age can claim they have never used drugs before.
Most of the OTC drugs at the pharmacy can be more damaging to your health than
alcohol. The only people who can probably claim to be drug free are those who
claim to heal with prayer.

~~~
pyre
Marijuana is a Schedule I controlled substance in the US (the most restricted
set), while cocaine is a Schedule II controlled substance. The US government
considers marijuana to be a _harder_ drug than cocaine. There is no logic to
this stuff other than:

\- Drugs Are Bad Mmkay(tm)

\- I don't need no 'scientists' to do 'studies,' because everyone knows that
Drugs Are Bad Mmkay(tm).

\- Since Drugs Are Bad Mmkay(tm), I can't allow a drug to go _down_ in the
rankings, only up!

\- If a drug _were_ to go down in the rankings, it would be political suicide.
Political/religious/etc opportunists would come out of the wood-work to ply
their silver tongues and attempt to get the general public to tar-and-feather
those responsible (while benefiting the opportunists immensely, of course). \-
Even if I wanted to allow a drug to go down in the rankings, it would be
political suicide

------
tobylane
So is Jennifer Lawrence, an award winning actress. There's groups who could
benefit a lot more from this kind of pain relief just in the states it's legal
in, while programmers and actors are the main groups of California.

~~~
nhebb
> So is Jennifer Lawrence, an award winning actress.

I'm fine with the legalization of marijuana, but as an appeal to authority,
that one gave me a chuckle.

~~~
lowboy
Esp for this crowd.

------
lubujackson
I love that Bloomberg Businessweek includes a TLDR for their one page article.

Right at the bottom, too, so you don't know it's there.

------
seanp2k2
What this map doesn't highlight: all the ghetto / somewhat ghetto areas on the
map with multiple families living in a 1br apt because that's the only way
they can afford the $2k/month rent.

I'm sure none of those people smoke trees, though.

~~~
hack_edu
I'm sure they do, and at the same frequency of most all income brackets. The
rate of usage across classes is pretty flat.

------
gobengo
Fuck this article and all of the instances of New York trivializing the tech
industry. Seriously. Bravo comes in and creates the most ridiculously
inaccurate depiction of creating a tech company one could ever imagine. And
Bloomberg, which owns Businessweek, is writing articles like this. This is
getting ridiculous.

