On Marijuana and Thinking
A part of the “Conventional Wisdom” concerning the use of marijuana
is that it is harmful to thinking. Speaking from my personal experience,
I find this to be generally untrue. It is true that there are some
minor short-term memory effects which seem to be more common in heavy smokers
than in non-smokers. But it is my belief that this is part of a
trade-off in exchange for capabilities which are otherwise generally inaccessible.
My experience over 30 years of heavy marijuana use has shown me
that for complex projects which involve integrating and managing large
amounts of information, marijuana is a godsend. Much of my personal
experience has involved designing, writing, and supporting database centered
software systems. I liken the effect to being the difference between
walking and driving, with marijuana being the fuel for the project vehicle.
When I try to work on a project such as this without an ample
supply of marijuana available I find myself at a great disadvantage as
compared to my optimal state of being. When straight I can struggle
through 30-40 lines of code in a days work. With marijuana, I can
generate 180-200 lines of code each day on a continuing basis. An
ability which marijuana particularly fuels involves holding the details
of large projects in the mind simultaneously. This makes it much easier
to generate code to model the project. Also, once in project mode,
much of the processing work is done by subconscious processes. It
is typical for me to tap into long flows of code in which I am merely
transcribing that which has already been written by my subconscious mind.
Another benefit of this marijuana driven project mode is the ability
to easily shift my focus between low-level details and overall structure.
This makes it easier to manage the detailed interrelationships between
the various elements of a project. I have a theory about how this
all might be related to the trade-off in short-term memory.
I can see many similarities between organic short-term memory,
and computer cache memory. It is a separate function and storage
process from that for mass-storage long-term memory. In non-marijuana
habituated individuals this short-term memory is intimately entwined in
the everyday experience of life. I see it primarily used as a current
events buffer - holding and managing the various mundane but pertinent
details required to navigate life minute to minute.
When I am in this marijuana project mode, I see this same cache
memory used for a different purpose. I believe this quick access
functionality is used to hold and manage a map of the structure and interrelationships
relating to the project at hand. The result being that I can generate
design documents and code like the wind, but I need to go into the den
3 times to finally remember that I went there to get a coaster for my drink.
The most recent example of this was when I developed the website
for a publication I recently completed. Having never attempted
to write a web page before, I downloaded a free trial of Dreamweaver MX2004
and started to plug away at learning the package and designing and writing
my site. Within 10 days I had the 20-page site fully written and
up and running, including links to PayPal for credit card payments (www.winatguts.com).
Another frequently mentioned concern regarding marijuana has to
do with potential damage to thinking ability caused by long-term use.
And again I see myself as a perfect example of a long-term heavy user of
marijuana. I have smoked since I was 14 years old, and smoked almost
daily since I was 17. (I say almost because there have been times
when there was just no marijuana to be found anywhere - most notably the
summer of 1976 in Philadelphia.) I am now 47, so that makes 30
years of continuous heavy use. If I have a ready and affordable
supply of marijuana I smoke about an ounce and a half to two ounces per
month. When I am consumed by a major project, my marijuana usage increases
significantly.
Almost a year ago I decided to take an IQ test to see how much
30 years of pot smoking had affected my brain function. I cannot
speak for the validity of the test, nor do I know what the margin of error
was for the scoring. It was the online test offered by Emode.
It was certainly an extensive and challenging test. I took the test
in one continuous flow, and was smoking hits of marijuana before and during
the test to maintain what felt to me to be the optimum “high”.
For a baseline, in the school placement tests when I was very
young, my overall IQ was measured at 132. My combined SAT’s taken
when I was 17, (without being high for the test), were 1310 which roughly
correlate to an IQ of 131. The results of the Emode test put my
current IQ at 138. And while this may not be the most reliable test
in the world, this result would still seem to suggest that 30 years of
smoking pot has not done significant damage to my ability to think and
process new information.
I challenge any 47 year old who has been drinking daily for the
past thirty years to match these kind of results - especially if they
drink while they are testing. Furthermore, on that short-term memory
thing, there are plenty of people nearly as bad about that as me who
have never smoked pot in their lives. I think it has as much to
do with how busy your mind is, and how many different things you are trying
to manage and do in the same time-frame. Being absent-minded is certainly
not a monopoly of the stoners.
In conclusion I wish to point out that this is only my personal
experience. Others may have extremely different relationships
with this drug from the one I have had. But for myself, it is clear
that the benefits of smoking marijuana to my thought processes are substantial.
It is also clear that, far from being a mental “burn-out” from being stoned
every day, my mental function is still quite healthy and vibrant.
And I suspect that my story is far from unique. Unfortunately, in the
current climate of misunderstanding and persecution, it is not a good career
move for techie professionals to admit to marijuana use.
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