[Paper Review] Hashing It Out: A Survey of Programmers' Cannabis Usage, Perception, and Motivation

Madeline Endres, Kevin F. Boehnke+1 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Dec 17, 2021

Advanced Malware Detection Techniques4 citations

TL;DR

This study presents the first large-scale survey of cannabis use among programmers, revealing that 18% use cannabis at least once a month while programming, primarily for perceived cognitive enhancement in tasks like brainstorming and entering 'flow state,' despite widespread workplace drug policies. The findings challenge assumptions about cannabis use in software engineering and highlight a disconnect between employee behavior and corporate anti-drug policies.

ABSTRACT

Cannabis is one of the most common mind-altering substances. It is used both medicinally and recreationally and is enmeshed in a complex and changing legal landscape. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some software developers may use cannabis to aid some programming tasks. At the same time, anti-drug policies and tests remain common in many software engineering environments, sometimes leading to hiring shortages for certain jobs. Despite these connections, little is actually known about the prevalence of, and motivation for, cannabis use while programming. In this paper, we report the results of the first large-scale survey of cannabis use by programmers. We report findings about 803 developers' (including 450 full-time programmers') cannabis usage prevalence, perceptions, and motivations. For example, we find that some programmers do regularly use cannabis while programming: 35% of our sample has tried programming while using cannabis, and 18% currently do so at least once a month. Furthermore, this cannabis usage is primarily motivated by a perceived enhancement to certain software development skills (such as brainstorming or getting into a programming zone) rather than medicinal reasons (such as pain relief). Finally, we find that cannabis use while programming occurs at similar rates for programming employees, managers, and students despite differences in cannabis perceptions and visibility. Our results have implications for programming job drug policies and motivate future research into cannabis use while programming.

Motivation & Objective

• To investigate the prevalence of cannabis use among software developers, particularly during programming tasks.
• To understand the motivations behind cannabis use in programming contexts, distinguishing between medicinal and cognitive enhancement reasons.
• To examine differences in usage patterns across roles (e.g., employees, managers, students) and perceptions of visibility and stigma.
• To assess the impact of workplace drug policies on hiring and developer recruitment in software engineering.

Proposed method

• A large-scale, anonymous online survey was conducted with 803 participants, including 450 full-time professional developers.
• Participants were recruited from open-source communities, university groups, and social media programming forums to ensure diverse representation.
• The survey collected data on cannabis use frequency, motivations (e.g., creativity, focus, pain relief), work-related usage, and experiences with workplace drug testing.
• Demographic and role-based comparisons were made to assess differences in usage and perception across employees, managers, and students.
• Self-selection bias was mitigated by emphasizing anonymity and non-exclusion of non-users, and data quality was validated against known recruitment population demographics.
• Statistical analysis was used to identify patterns in usage, motivation, and policy exposure, including changes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 What is the prevalence of cannabis use among programmers while performing programming tasks?
• RQ2 What are the primary motivations for using cannabis during programming—cognitive enhancement, medicinal relief, or other factors?
• RQ3 How does cannabis use while programming vary across different professional roles (e.g., employees, managers, students)?
• RQ4 To what extent do workplace drug policies, including mandatory drug testing, affect programmer hiring and retention?

Key findings

• 18% of the surveyed programmers reported using cannabis at least once a month while programming, indicating a notable and regular practice.
• 35% of respondents had tried programming while under the influence of cannabis at least once, suggesting widespread experimentation.
• The primary motivation for cannabis use during programming was perceived enhancement of cognitive skills such as brainstorming and achieving a 'programming zone,' not medical reasons.
• Cannabis use while programming occurred at similar rates across employees, managers, and students, despite differences in perceived visibility and stigma.
• 29% of respondents reported having taken a drug test for a programming-related job, indicating that anti-drug policies remain common in software engineering workplaces.
• The study found that remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with increased cannabis use during work-related programming tasks.