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

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 :)

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

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.

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.

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.