It appears that industries powered by brains, commonly referred to as high tech, are also powered by marijuana.
Almost 92% of the people that work in the technology and telecommunications industries answered “yes” to the survey’s question asking if they had ever smoked cannabis.
“Obviously, cannabis users work in a variety of professions,” said James Malach, creative director at technology firm TongueWag, which commissioned the survey, “but the high proportion of users in the IT sector is considerably higher than we suspected.”
The study says nothing much about current use in high tech. But even so. Think about what would happen to our high tech industries (the engines of our current prosperity such as it is) if a significant fraction of those folks had wound up with a pot conviction after trying the herb in their youth.
In my own experience in high tech, I would estimate that between 1/4 and 1/2 of the engineers I worked with were regular users. Of course there is no way for me to tell for certain (thus the wide variance in numbers) because no one with a job is going to admit to pot use and thus lose their job.
Update: I found a site which discusses the anecdotal evidence of pot use in high tech. Here is a bit from the site:
Several heavy pot smokers I’ve known have also been some of the smartest and most productive I’ve worked with. People seem to use these drugs to unwind, to blow off steam, and I’ve never seen anyone have trouble keeping it out of the workplace. If people have substance problems it’s more likely alcoholism.
Cross Posted at Power and Control
Comments
3 responses to “Hi Tech Powered By Pot”
Use was very high among applicants at a ISP I worked part time for in the 90s, so high that they actually had to stop testing potential employees.
Most of them weren’t really techs though ….. most were just gamers who knew a little about computers and who wanted a high speed connection for gaming.
I worked for a software development company some years back. From what I could gather, a large number of the folks over on the production side were pot smokers.
The ones that I knew were smokers all said it made them better at their jobs as it allowed them to clear their minds and relieve stress.
That explains Windows!