A Third of Programmers Use Cannabis at Work

University of Michigan researchers commented that anecdotal evidence indicated that programmers were more likely to use cannabis at work. As a result, they conducted the "first large-scale survey" on the topic, asking 800 developers to detail how cannabis fits in with their work.

A primary motivation for the study was that drug testing policies remain common in the programming sector, contributing to "hiring shortages for certain jobs."

"This prohibition of cannabis use in software engineering has contributed to a widely-reported hiring shortage for certain US government programming jobs."

35 per cent of survey participants said they've "tried cannabis while programming or completing another software engineering-related task." Seventy-three per cent of that group claimed that they had consumed marijuana while working in the past year.

53 per cent said they'd consumed cannabis while programming at least 12 times, 27 per cent reported using it at least twice a week, and 4 per cent said they use it while working on a nearly daily basis.

The study authors wanted to understand why programmers chose to use cannabis. The study found that people used cannabis the most for tasks such as prototyping, coding, brainstorming and testing.

"Overall, the study found that programmers were more likely to report enjoyment of programming enhancement motivations than wellness motivations. The most common reasons reported were 'to make programming-related tasks more enjoyable' (61%) and 'to think of more creative programming solutions' (53%)," 

Additionally, "at least 30% of participants selected all programming enhancement reasons. Interestingly wellness-related motivations (such as mitigating pain and anxiety) were cited by less than 30% of respondents. Thus, it would appear that while wellness does motivate some cannabis use while programming, it is far from the most common motivation."

While there's a noteworthy preponderance of cannabis consumption among programmers, the study found that even those who don't use cannabis support reform.

"91 per cent of participants said that cannabis use should be legal for recreational and medicinal use. This is compared to 60 per cent of the United States population in 2021.

The research also discovered 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," 
Drug testing policies have become a popular subject as more states introduce legalization.