More than one-third of programmers (‘techies’) say they’ve used cannabis while on the job, with many believing that weed helps encourage creativity and get them into the “programming mode,” per a new investigation.
Investigators at the University of Michigan expressed that evidence indicates that those in the tech field were more likely to use cannabis while on the clock, so they set out to fulfill the “first large-scale survey” on the matter, asking more than 800 developers to detail how cannabis comes into play while on the job.
A direct motivation for the investigation was that cannabis testing procedures stay common in the tech sector, which may be donating to “work deficiencies for certain positions.”
That’s even the point at the federal tier, the investigation authors comment, citing remarks by one-time FBI Director James Comey, who expressed in 2014 that he was interested in easing employment procedures around cannabis because some forthcoming agents “want to smoke cannabis. On the way to the interview.”
“This banning of cannabis use in program engineering has donated to a widely-reported hiring deficiency for certain US government tech jobs,” the analysis expressed.
Thirty-five percent of survey participants expressed that they’ve “tested out cannabis while programming or finishing another program engineering-connected job.” Seventy-three percent of that party expressed they’ve ingested cannabis while clocked in over the course of the past year.
The investigation—formally known as “Hashing It Out: A Survey of Programmers’ Cannabis Usage, Perception, and Motivation” and publicized late last month in Cornell University’s archives—also looked at the frequency of use among people who expressed they’ve used cannabis while programming.
Fifty-three percent expressed they’d ingested cannabis while working at least 12 times, 27 percent expressed they used it at least two times a week, and four percent expressed they use it while employed on a virtually (tech pun intended) day-to-day basis.
The investigators wanted to comprehend better why techies chose to smoke cannabis, too. And they discovered that the most typical assignments that people utilized cannabis for were brainstorming, drafting, testing, and coding.
“Generally, we found that techies were more likely to convey enjoyment of programming enhancement reasons than wellness incentives: the most typical reasons were ‘to make programming-affiliated jobs more fun’ (61%) and ‘to think of better creative programming resolutions’ (53%),” the investigation discovered. “All enhancement motivations were chosen by at least 30% of participants. Meanwhile, general wellness-corresponding answers (such as alleviating pain and anxiety) were all noted by less than 30% of participants. Therefore, while wellness does encourage some cannabis use while ‘teching it up,’ it is not the most shared explanation.”
While there’s a notable prevalence of cannabis consumption among programmers, even most of those who don’t use cannabis are supportive of reform, the study found.
“Ninety-one percent of our players say that cannabis use should be permitted for both recreational and medical use compared to 60 percent of the general United States populace in 2021,” the authors conveyed.
The investigation also discovered that “cannabis use while teching occurs at equivalent rates software employees, managers, and researchers despite disparities in cannabis perceptions and visibility.”
“Our consequences have essences for software programming job cannabis policies and motivate prospective research into cannabis use while working in the tech field,” the analysis states.
After New York chose to end cannabis prohibition this year, the state Department of Labor revealed that most employers are no longer permitted to drug test most employees for cannabis.
Recently, Amazon expressed that it’s earlier decision to end drug testing for weed will also be retroactive, conveying ex-workers and applicants disciplined for testing positive for THC will have their work eligibility mended.