Slashdot Mirror
Techies Rampant on Drugs
Several folks noted this story running on the LA Times which talks about techie running rampant on drugs. Compares dot commers to the Wall Street druggies in the eighties. Fairly bleak picture actually. Personally I don't have time for anything more then whiskey (and even that seems to occur less and less as I get older).
And only fools beleive propaganda.
~
In a free society, what you do with your own chemistry is your business not the government's, teachers', nor well-intentioned naive neighbor's.
Do take drugs! See what interesting things happen. Just remember that you take them because they are fun. You can't live altered all the time....
Balance is much more satisfying.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GWB if he did it, he's ashamed.
BC, proud shit head.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
... is having all the fun?
Seriously, none of the techies I've knwon ever needed anything more then Caffine and Glucose in order to nerd all night. (okay, I admit it, I ONCE debugged a bit stoend in college-- just as an experiment.)
The contact high of making something work is generally enough for egnineers. Intresting thin gabout this articleis, if you read the fine print, he wasn't a techie at all. He was a film major and "silicon valley executive".
Strange...when I worked for a defense contractor they didn't make me pee in a cup either.
It was only when I applied at a company in a boring run of the mill industry that they made me do that. Go figure.
To email, do the obvious.
Um... yeah. If you say so. Generating the output string, eh?
;)
Ah well, I can still write the other version at my leisure, since your optimized version won't help me figure out the algorithm.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I'm a techie living in a distinguished N. Raleigh neighborhood, but I don't see many hard drugs around here. I smoke up often and so do others I know. I hate alcohol because of the lack of thinking skills; I code better when high, but don't go to my day job high. I have my own company and that is what benefits from my free flowing idea process while high. I think it is just part of my life style. I wouldn't want it any other way. It's the Work Hard - Play Hard deal.
And yes, I do know that the impurities in the nicotine delivery system will kill me quicker than all the rest combined.
To email, do the obvious.
conditioned learning is a pretty elemtary psycologic phenomenon. I have to admit, it's pretty weird, ain't it?
For instance, I can only screw fat chicks while I'm drunk. (ok, maybe that's unrelated.)
... some newspaper runs a bullshit story like this about "rampant" drug use in the tech industry, with the stated or unstated "concern" about software quality resulting from such a deploreable situation. It is no more true now than the last time it ran.
Some people do drugs. Most don't. Big fucking deal.
Of course, since such reports in the newspaper are bound to excite the drug warriors and their busybody supporters, we can expect some kind of crackdown on the industry, with concomitant restrictions on civil liberties.
I'm an addict...If by drugs you mean pr0n.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
Lots of people.
unsigned char *a="\x98mWPS\x1\x87hSJH\0159F",b;main(){for(;b+=*a ++-80;putchar(b));}
If the allegation is not substantiated (that means proof, if you're curious), there is no valid claim. I'm not ignoring the point. I merely asking that before wild allegations are thrown about, someone actually provide some evidence (that proof thing again, go fig.) that what's being alleged actually has some basis in reality.
In the meantime, you really aren't a convicing argument for that whole 'calm thing'. Just so you know. Have another Krispy Kreme to settle those cravings.
--Humpty Dumpty was pushed!
But my point is that if you ARE taking on responsibility, the use of drugs or alcohol impairs that ability.
----
Lyell E. Haynes
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
i shouldn't be criticized because i can't find orkney island dark anywhere in california... it's certainly not my fault, and all, all my friends are with me on this.
Is that the same brewery that makes the Skull Splitter? Wicked good, if it is. But you should be able to get Bert Grant's in California, also Sierra Nevada. Both of those will outshine whatever you can import normally...
itachi
Tomorrow the US Supreme court is going to consider weither or not the 4th amendment is something worth paying attention to.
http://www.aclu.org/court/7th_brief.htm
If they find for Indianapolis, I expect a looong drive into work the next morning. Maybe it's time to find a part of the country where I still have rights and can walk downtown without having to worry about being assaulted by a cop..
-----------
end communication
Hey! you stole my name
You're right, I should've removed alcohol from that list.
> ... fuck your life and take your money.
Are you sure we aren't talking about wives here?
--
Gellor
I personally think the article is offbase. If it said techies were smoking pot id believe it but I just dont see the heroin, X, and coke being a major player in the techie field.
On the other hand my current company, a startup which shall remain unnamed, has a policy which states. "The use of illicit drugs or manufacture of said drugs on company premisis will result in disciplinary messures." Thats because of the majority of my company like to toke up a joint on the weekend. To date i dont think anyones gotten nailed for manufacturing in the office :).
--- Always remember. 99.36% of all statistics are inaccurate.
I don't drink, smoke or do drugs - coffee (latte, actually) and diet soda are my vices. Part of this comes from being a control freak - or should I say, an in control freak. I'd hate it if I had to submit to the effects of a drug like coke, heroin, ecstacy, or whatever. I can get high enough on all of the interesting things that life has to offer.
This story is par for the course. First, the traditional news media "built up" high tech. And now, the same media is starting to tear down high tech.
The "movie stars" of Silicon Valley are now getting their turn.
Steve Magruder
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
If there's anything we techies thrive on, it's Speed.
Pablo Nevares, "the freshmaker".
Pablo Nevares, "the freshmaker".
who needs drugs? I'm tired, strung out, paranoid, and probably delusional from staying up all night coding. Drugs? I don't need no steenkin' drugs, I run Linux.
---
I post links to stuff here
There was a big story in the NY Times recently about the re-emerging drug culture. basincally, just like in the early 80's, a bunch of people have a lot of money and can't figure out what to do with it to make their lives better, so drugs becomes the thing.
(although mostly vengence involves locking you in the dungeon for a few years - nothing harsh)
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
I love DRRUUGGSS I am on speed and heroine togehter with cocaine morphine steroids grain alcohol pot LSD benzine whisky vodka wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee................................ ...
And I run Windows.
"Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental." -Slashdot
And Guiness is pretty popular with unix sysadmins...
Only the younger ones. Once they hit about 25, they start to brew their own beer -- which, for the first few batches, is usually darker than guiness. By the time they hit thirty, they've generally mellowed out, and started to drink a whole range of interesting beer. Not Labatts, of course -- I said interesting beer.
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
You make a good point. Let me revise my statement. To those of you who do drugs: Increase your consumption by 10,000 fold.
I don't have to keep correcting you, do I?
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
I hereby offer my services as a test rat...
Amen brotha.
What are you talking about ? I wanted to be theoretical chemist when I grew up. 22 years later when my drugged off-spring started to pawn my Linux PCs away under my hands, I thought it's time to think about drugs being a big deal. Does denial increase proportionally with your intelligence ?
I never got into the uppers side of things, save for caffeine and sugar in combination. I've given up everything else I ever did. They interfered with my ability to persue my hobbies.
The only thing left is booze, but even then it takes me a year to go through a six-pack of beer.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
I have done some reading. So far, I have found lots of claims, like yours, that they are a cult. However, little in the way of real information.
:)
This is not to belittle your experience, but, personally, I need more info than that to call a church a "cult".
All of the Church members that I have met were really nice people (I supose you don't get new members by being an asshole to everyone).
They are certainly very strict, and they certainly have a strict veiw of the bible. They also preach that only members of their church will be saved (a sign of a cult...but not unheard of outside of cults either)
None of them ever tried to push me away from my friend, none of them ever asked me to join or asked me about my beliefs. (I happen to be an agnostic - but ocasionally I like to take a hard line atheist attitude when arguing. I must try the discordian stance some day - soon).
He did leave the church on more than one ocasion. AFAIK he may not even be with them now. Once, as I remember, he left the church with some girl who he was screwing...then he decided that he didn't want to live a life of sin and refused to have sex with her anymore, and asked her to com eback to the church with him.
He was puzzled as to why this pissed her off and she didn't want to. Who says girls don't like getting laid?
Anyway bottom line - people who leave churches on bad terms tend to say bad things about them. The experiences of one or two may not be common. I will personally be wary of this church, and will warn others - but I don't know if I believe that its a cult.
-Steve
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
More potent - but very very short acting.
It also has very little of the euphoric effect that most opiod users are after. Of course, on the up side, it will absorb transdermally.
No, never tried it. My mother used to work in a hospital. Its amazing what you learn from knowing hospital workers.
Of course...its often found in street heroin.
Probably sold mostly to heavy addicts...once their tolerance is high enough I would imagine its much like tobacco...not much of a high...it just keeps the withdrawls away.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Eeek? Only 15 thousand joints? I sure came close to OD'ing yesterday - thank god I was just too stoned to reach for that fifteen-thousant joint, or I'd be in trouble :)
On a more serious note, I seen many techies affected by drugs, but that's probably more university life than computer scientists.
For what it's worth: I've lost family members to drug abuse (too many cigerettes - they couldn't quit); seen close friends lose family members to drug abuse (too much achohol, couldn't quit); had a friend nearly due to drug abuse (got addicted to ProPlus (caffine tablets), and ended up taking sleeping tablets at night just to sleep and nearly OD'ed); a kid in my school (years ago) got sent to a juvinile detention centre after he got caught stealing one to many times to support his glue-sniffing habbits.
Strangely I've known anyone who died of an illegal drug, dispite the fact I take the occasional drug (so obviously all my friends are crazy drug addicts). Strange how the world turns.
While its great...all of it can be found at a good site like the www.lycaeum.org (leda.lycaeum.org rocks!)
Of course on moderation - it should be noted that chronic nitrous abuse can hand down a very nasty neurological syndrome to those unlucky enough to truely go overboard.
Check out a couple of case studies of people who walked into the ER after 4 months of daily heavy Nitrous use (20 whippits/day was one of the studies I read). Walking in, no feeling whatsoever throughout parts of the body - barely able to walk.
Takes a while to recover too. Did talk to a friend who worked in a hemotology lab for a while. He said that most of the syndrome is consistant with chronic B-12 depletion (guess what - it is known that nitrous use depletes B-12! - not a big deal once a week or once a month - use it daily and your asking for trouble)
Of course - who can say if thats the total extent of its effect. Some say it might cause certain types of organic brain damage like other dissasciatives (Ketamine, DXM). Though personally I doubt it...since its mechanism of action is so different. (of course the fac tthat I doubt it means very little - of course AFAIK no data has been released one way or the other yet.
Side notes:
1) IMNSHO best to buy a cream dispenser. You can hit directly from it without freeze burn...and you can make some cool deserts too! (yes they are kind of expensive but they work - and they make a pretty good whipped cream to boot)
2) 2 people won darwin awards for strapping on nitrous masks and, subsequently, dieing. Both of them were medical workers, one of them an EMT, I believe. (ie they should have known better)
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Yep, every sucessful addict has a handy dandy drug book.
MarNuke
Let's see, Intel just scrapped the Timna successor to the Celeron (how many millions of dollars just got flushed?), just had to recall the 1.13 GHz PIII ...that's all the bad news that comes to mind, but I don't follow Intel much, I'm running AMD just like I did on the last computer.
It's difficult to see just how much good their effort to ensure a clean and sober workplace has done either the company or its stockholders.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Let me guess....
You know of the lycaeum. You have read pihkal and maybe some of tihkal. Perhaps a few other books.
You sounds like another exception.
Most users have never heard of any of those. Most go around talking about how "a ten strip of acid will burn a hole in you rbrain the size of a quarter" or "your tripping on dead brain cells"
All the drug information that the average user has is a mix of urban legends and outright lies. They know how to get high...and thats about it.
This is, of course, why organizations like DanceSafe exist, to try and educate people enough so that they can survive getting high.
Of course this is mostly because people learn on the street. They learn from other users, and just assume that they know what they are talking about.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
And do you actually have evidence that these same people, had they NOT been smoking grass, would have performed any better?
Some of the most intelligent and productive people I know (and I am not counting myself here) are drug users. My own sister dropped out of HS, got a GED and went to colledge a year ahead of her peers and maintaind a 3.5 GPA, all while smoking HEAVILY. (talking several big joints a day - her and her BF used to buy a QP a month for personal use)
Of course she is just one person.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Well, I personally disagree with drug testing for any reason whatsoever. I think it's none of anyone's business what I do, so I agree with them not drug-testing.
I go natural, no speed for me, im trying to phase caffiene out, but mountain dew is sooo good...
Shit adds up at the bottom...
My assertaion is this. My private time is just that. MINE and PRIVATE. My employer has no right to know ANYTHING that I do during that time.
Whether its toking on a bowl, or fucking some strange man up the ass, its my time, and my buisness.
I see drug testing as no different than sticking a swab up my ass looking doe semen in my fecal matter. Its none of their buisness. Its up to me to manage what I do on my private time.
> Despite your protests, I have no way to know if
> you are going to be brain dead, paranoid or
> psychotic the next time you come to work.
And if your hobby is sky diving? Bungie jumping?
Pretty good possibility that you might end up laid up in the hospital for months, or even dead. Probably not huge, but certainly non-zero.
Should my employer take into acount that I ride a motorcycle everywhere...and thus if I get in an accident, it could be very serious and might mean they have to look for a new employee?
Oh.... maybe I go around having promiscuous sex and not wearing condoms. Some nasty STDs out there. Just think what some of them could do to my productivity long term!
Perhaps they should be looking at my medical history too...make sure I don't have one of those nasty diseases where the body slowly degenerates over many years. Talk about potential productivity loss...not to mention the hassles with someone going on disability!
Bottom line:
My body is mine. My employer is a person who has a rental agreement on my time, not on my body itself. The chemical makeup of my body is my buisness. As long as I am sober and able to work, they have no buisness investigating that makeup, and no right to do so (yes no right whatsoever, and I don't care what your laws say on the subject)
Any employer that cannot respect me as a human being, does not deserve my time, and will not get it.
> Your performance will degrade, it's only a mater
> of time.
Yes it will degrade and improve...happens all the time, has nothing to do with drug use, has alot more to do with stress level and how much sleep I am able to get. Nothing brings productivity back quite like a week or two of vacation where one doesn't need to think about work at all.
You think a person who is stoned is impaired....I find missing a few hours of sleep to be many times more impairing than I normally would get smoking a joint.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I never needed to either, but why the hell shouldn't I smoke a bowl every once in a while, or have a few shrooms? I don't need to, but do I NEED to drink coke, eat fast food, or many other things along these lines. As for me, I think a couple hits off the pipe is much more healthy than the cup of coffee most of you had this morning...
Shit adds up at the bottom...
So your saying that an employer should have the right to criticize me for not getting enough sleep at nigght (which certainly does affect performance)?
Thats fair. However should they be able to use the amount of sleep that I get at night as a metric for deciding on whether to hire me?
> They're paying you to do a specific job
> function. If what you do on your free time
> interferes then they are going to be wasting
> their money.
Certainly. IF IT INTERFERES. Do companies test for alcohol and fire or not hire employees that have any alcohol at all in their blood?
Afterall....if they drink alcohol, they might start comming in with hangovers, or even drunk. Drugs are drugs.
The simple fact is that the tests can't tell the difference between a person who smokes pot with friends on friday nights, and someone who is sitting in front of them, stoned out of his gord.
> Testing to see if you have been using drugs at
> all shows that there is a higher likelihood of
> drug use on the job.
Again...a positive for alcohol shows a higher likelyhood of comming to work drunk or with a hangover. A positive for nicotine is almost a garauntee that they will be using drugs on the job! It may not impair them much...but not much gets done while they are getting their fix.
As I have said before...IMNSHO a company that drug tests isn't worth working for (even though I know I could beat the test...thats hardly the point - its about respect). My drug use is an issue between me and my doctor - and its no one elses buisness.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
> I'm selling you my labor--you don't own me.
Exactly.
Your renting my time....not my body. My body is mine. It is my responsibility to keep it capable of performing the job.
If I am unable to do that, and my performance suffers, then fire me.
I ask to be judged on the quality of my work rather than the content of my urine. Any company that can't understand that, will not be allowed to rent my time.
You know, I have, in fact been pulled aside and talked to about my performance, at my previous job. Was it because I was smoking too much pot? Hell no. At the time I wasn't even smoking pot. It was because I wasn't sleeping at night and was falling asleep at work. (chronic sleep deprivation blows)
I have used more drugs since I started this new job than I did my entire life previous (never when oncall, and never at work, only pot after work on week nights). They are considering me for raises and giving me glowing performance reviews.
Why? Cuz now I get my fill of Unix use and programming at work, and have no craving to stay up online all night long...(tonight being the exception to the rule). Drug use has had nothing to do with it.
Well thats not true - one of the greatest performance enhancements I have had was quitting one drug - caffeine. (whihc I have relapsed on - I need to quit again) Not only did it helped me sleep better at night (reducing my need for caffeine) but just generally improved my mood, making me more happy, less jittery and on edge, and on the whole, more productive.
Speaking of sleep...bed time now. I am going to have to go to bed real early tomorow night, or else I am really going to be heading for some impairment.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I was a big pot smoker in college. But I graduated recently and quit smoking at the same time. I was amazed at how much clearer I thought and spoke. Now that I have been working for a while I decided to try it again a couple times. It made me real stupid for a week afterwards and my productivity dropped more than I would have liked. I have decided to make it a very special occasion thing now. Even once a month is too much for me now. But that is a personal decision. I would support anyone's decision to smoke as long as it isn't interfering with their life.
<SIG>
I think I lost my work ethic while surfing the web. If you find it, please email it to crispy@crotch.caltech.edu.
</SIG>
My sig has a broken link in it.
Somehow I had gottten this rosy picture that engineers (especially software engineers), being people who were paid to think, would be smarter than to use drugs. I personally don't do drugs (scared of needles), drink (hate the taste of alchohol), smoke (allergic to tobacco smoke) or gamble (inefficient).
Now that I look over that list of reasons, none of them is "because I'm smart". Maybe thinking has nothing to do with it.
I think it's all down to a matter of taste (and occasional boredom). I've injected drugs previously (maybe 6 or 7 times total, to see what the various experiences were like), I've snorted, smoked dope, etc. But I don't do much of that any more, mainly because I have no real reason to continue doing so (if drugs were legalised, I'd consider some experimentation with the psychedelic drugs a la Alexander Shulgin, but I don't see that happening soon)...
I think smart people know when to use drugs and when not to. Operating heavy machinery? Probably a bad idea. Working in a high pressure environment? Occasional uppers (caffeine, speed, etc.) to keep you on top of things. And so on. Drugs are tools, just like any other... you have to be careful with them, but they're working for you, not the other way round.
The whole illegal/legal issue is another matter; I don't tend to recognise Government authority over personal choice, so I'm careful with what I do, and make sure it fits into my ethical structure.
deus does not exist but if he does
I don't smoke for the simple fact that I can't afford to support other people's habits (hey man, can I bum a smoke?)
To misquote Churchill, never has an operating system (FreeBSD) used by so many been administered by so few. - NetCraft
mainly because you get realitively high, and yet when you wake up in the afternoon there are no hangovers or anything like that.
lose != loose
I'm just re-interpreting the name for the upcoming century.
One day there will be a million of us.
billybobs unite!
Unless, of course, the adfded stress makes you irritable, and you tend to get violent when you drink...
Exactly. And if I hire women, I have no idea when they might not go and get pregnant - then I'll have to re-train another employee. And if I hire anyone who enjoys a drink, they might become an alcoholic or drive drunk and kill someone. And if I hire someone who's overweight, they might have a heart attack and drop dead and now I have to go find another employee. Same thing for people who ride motorcycles. Or like scuba diving. Or playing pool - their eyes may get poked by those long pointy sticks.
And oh yes, anyone who voices any political views that are not endorsed by the mainstream - what about them? They might go and join a protest march and get killed, or even worse, they might loot and pillage and get thrown in jail. Back to the job search.
Yes! And let's not forget Thoughtcrime either. This horrible problem that will lead to the downfall of society can be stopped with a simple measure - all TVs will have little cameras also. And the TVs can never be turned off, only down - but the cameras will stay on.Let us never forget:
-sUnlimited growth == Cancer.
I'm probably a lot younger than you guys are (i'm 21), while holding a really high position in a good company. I handle all my expences including school so, working has become more than pleasyre for me, it has become a racing thing. The market in Greece is very demanding while it doesn't pay as it should (if i was working in UK or US for example, my salary would be 3 times what i get now). Thats it with giving a small picture of the case. Anyway, from my point of view, the companies just don't care about employees on drugs because they only think about money and surviving the market. Above that, goverments have realized whats happening and they are on the technology race too so, they dont want to see whats going on. And it all comes down to workers and their small meaningless lifes. Working for the pyramid or something. And nope, things wont change, because everything works like that nowdays, evolving serves money, not public needs. I'm very sorry to say that each and everyone can only care for himself and play the game to win.?
"a majority of 16-30 year olds take recreational drugs in europe."
now who is talking crap? are you counting alcohol/tobacco use? i've never seen an article describing that. i know us folk in ireland aren't up on the latest continental news but i'd think that would make the papers.
again, i think the war on drugs shit is crap. but i also think that people taking drugs are for the most part setting themselves up for a lot of pain and suffering. i've had friends who were "in control" and were not "losers" go out of control and become losers.
life is not safe. it throws all sorts of curves. the war on drugs people seem to think they can make it safe - they're wrong. drug advocates seem to think life *is* safe and it won't hurt them. they are also wrong.
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
>As for Heroin, valium and alcohol being a bad mix.
e s/cu/cu12.htm for more info
Not bad. Deadly. An independent study as proved that people who "overdose" heroin didn't take any significantly higher dosage of the drug. It was simply that they couldn't find any, so they ressorted to alcohol and tranquilisants. When they did find heroin at least, they took it while still under the influence. Most time it went into an overdose. But that's not the kind of thing you'll will hear on TV. It's just much better to leave people dying, that scare the shit out of the others I guess. Btw, read http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studi
"Of course I'm french, why d'you think I got this outttrrrageous accent?"
Blame Canada!
yep, not drinking very much though, really hate beer fueled clubs, etc... Very bad vibe there usually...
Well, no recreational drugs are really *good* (as in healty) from what I know. I do think they can be enjoyed with moderation, as long as you know what you're doing/what risks you're taking
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
true, was thinking of about £10 worth of weed sort of. Not sure about the rest of the UK but in london (with a little luck) you just get your fingers slapped/ a warning
Not that I never, ever inhaled!! it's true! honest!
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
<RANT>
What do you expect, people? What proportion of the populace-at-large is on Prozac, Ritalin, or some other mood-altering(?) drug? And that's just the legal prescription crap! Here's s little hint - it's a substantial chunk below a certain age-level. Here's another little hint - people get older.
Do the math...
</RANT>
Internet Explorer was unable to link to the Web page you requested. The page might use standard HTML or CSS.
well, i have a friend or two who code for a living (i am lucky i don't - i'm not very good) and they argue that smokin pot helps them when they get stuck on a difficult bit of coding... i have have choosen to avoid that kind of lifestyle all my life and i still cannot quite see their point of veiw on the subject... i argue with them that if you have to get high to code difficult things - it isnt really you - its the drugs making it possible... i would have a hard time claiming full credit for a high induced solution... (course someone could argue that is why i'm not very good i suppose)
I don't do drugs.
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
$ fortune -o -m . | rot13 | grep money | grep Cocaine
Cocaine is nature's way of telling you you have too much money.
Actully Coke is an ego thing..... it is just that money and ego tend to follow one antoter around.
As for Ganja (the noble weed) be more worried about tobac, or alcohol..... more health concerns with both of them then wacky tabbacy.
reality is for those who can't handle drugs. Drugs are for those who can't handle reality
I've given up on both.
Yes I can not spell...Wait....for a second there I almost cared.
If anyone read that story and thought that it is a glamourous lifestyle and are considering doing chems please go and smack your head against a large solid object repeatedly until you realise how bad drugs are for you.
I had a bit of a problem for a while and whilst I was fortunate enough to lose those habits I know of quite a few people who I once considered friends who were not so lucky.
A good point the article raises is how a lot of stimulant users start taking sedatives and/or depressants to counteract the havoc wreaked on their diurnal cycles. This kind of tweaking your system is bad, and it makes you stupid and far lest effective at work, not to mention in bed (unless of course you are taking Viagra in the mix).
Drink coffee, drink beer, smoke an occasional cigarette or joint.
If you have to try chemicals then be sure that you have enough character to stop, because even if you don't die as a direct result of your addictions you will fuck yourself up in a lot of different ways.
It isn't the kind of lifestyle that you can maintain for a long period and not have detrimental repucussions in some areas of your life.
"Winners don't do drugs" - Linus Torvalds
/me lines up.
On the other hand, since you appear to have hallucinated the word "diasporing", and created a phony French LaPhroig out of the perfectly Scots Laphroaig, these urine tests might be fignments of your imagination.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Young people + High Disposable Income + Stress = Large amount of drug use especially Coke and MDMA
Any group that has the above tends to have a large minority of drug users for example rock stars, actors, investment bankers and... IT workers.
Excuse me while I go and 'powder' my nose...
Okay, everyone, lets all get up from our desks and go look in the company filled refridgerator. Hmm, what do we have here:
three different flavors of jolt,
regular and diet montain dew,
fresh ground coffee for the company coffee maker,
a large supply of sugar filled snacks. Now open the company medicine cabinet... hmm, tylenol, bandaids,and nodoze. Now walk over to the middle manager's office, and open his personal fridge. Is it filled with beer, even though the company has a strict no alcohol policy.
And what, the management is pushing you to work 80 hours a week?
Face it people, the companies are in it for the money, and they can give a flying fuck about the health of their people. They will push any legal drug they can if they think it will improve output and ignore their own policies or turn a blind eye for the bottom line.
I'm not being negative, just blunt.
Yes employers, it is that simple.
when they came out with See-Hash?
With all this technology around and enough coke, I *MIGHT* just be able to take over the world!
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
The media/government doesn't want to recognise the obvious pattern here. They preach that drug addiction follows money. While this is a good coincidence and while money enables one to buy more drugs, it's not as if the mystical dot-com dream boy they seem to like to trumpet so much nowadays wakes up the morning after his IPO with a million dollars and having never experimented with drugs before or used drugs, runs out to a shady coffee bar and becomes a cocaine addict. No, this "dot-commer" (god I hate that phrase) used drugs all through high school, college, his first working years and right up to the day when he went IPO. Drugs AND money follow _intelligence_. This is not a beleif.. this is not a spin to put on the situation, this is a fact. And there is nothing wrong with it! The drugs that help these programmers stay up until 6 in the morning enable them to be MUCH more productive! The drugs that these people take on the weekends at parties help these people relax and enjoy themselves much in the same way that alcohol does, and in the same way as alcohol, these drugs must be used in moderation. Sure, there will be the few cases where someone loses control, someone fucks up and takes too much due to stupidity or lack of information about the drug they are taking or through addiction, but that is the exception to the rule. These are the same people that would die 10 years later in a drunk driving accident or because their bodies fail after constant alcoholism, but since this country is so wrapped up in the War on Drugs and Barry McCaffery's holy war of Publicity, the media will take the few exceptions and trumpet them as some sort of endemic.
To quote the prophet Bill Hicks, "If you don't beleive drugs have done some good things for us, do this for me, go home tonight and take all your records, all your tapes and all your CDs and burn them. Because you know all of those artists who have made all of that great music that has enhanced your lives, RRRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEAL fuckin high on drugs."
to get more info on Bill Hicks, check out Sacred Cow Productions
Also, check out SmokeDot, a Slash-based forum on drug information at www.smokedot.org
//Phizzy
"Most European technology just isn't worth our stealing," -- Former CIA chief James Woolsey, referring to Echelon
Actually, I think that very often when I look at my own code. I don't smoke in the traditional sense, though. The most that happens is that smoke starts curling out of my ears after a few Venti coffees from the local Starbucks.
The kind of coding I do, though, is prone to these sorts of questions. :-)
And yes, it's supposed to look like that.
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
A heard of buffalo can only move as fast as the
slowest buffalo, and when the herd is hunted; it
is the slowest and the weakest ones at the back
that are killed first.
This natural selection is good for the heard as
a whole, because the general speed and health
of the whole group keeps improving by the regular
attrition of the weakest members.
In much the same way, the human brain can
only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells.
Excessive intake of alcohol, we all know, kills
brain cells, but naturally, it attacks the slowest and
weakest brain cells first.
In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates
the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster
and more efficient machine.............
THAT'S WHY YOU ALWAYS FEEL SMARTER
AFTER A FEW BEERS!!!!
Yes I can not spell...Wait....for a second there I almost cared.
damn, drugs are too expensive, each 6 months i have to buy a 3D card at 500$, each 6 months i have to change my motherboard and buy new CPUs, soon i'll have to buy a P4 MB with two P4 CPU, i really have no money for drugs! Without counting money for a Meade LX200 16" and accesories...
--
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
Actually, it's not.
UBU
--
The shareholder is always right.
Dr. Pepper, you infidel!
James
Drug problem? Who, me? Hey, at least I'm not doing the black stuff. You know, the stuff from Columbia.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
..adds a whole new meaning to the phrase e-commerce...
I do have to say that marijuana seems to be the drug of choice, though. Coke is used less but is still present, whilst meth seems to be largely a California thing, since the NYPD has made it their primary mission (aside from harming innocent minorities) to eradicate any and all sources of the drug.
It seems to me that drug use used to be limited not only in it's frequency of use and by a small group of people. I'm not sure why it's so popular. I've done a few drugs and none of them ever "did it" for me. The after-effects were much worse than any brief gain they gave me.
Erm, sure for you maybe, but me and millions of other people get a lot of enjoyment from the various chemicals out there. What I can't stand is alcohol, and I try not to drink wherever possible. This weekend I spent out clubbing with a group of people I'd met the week before at another club and I spent the night chatting, dancing and meeting new people, and yes, I was on drugs. And I had an absolutely brilliant time.
Is it me or has our society lost their souls (in general)? It seems that we've all forgotten how to live. The only thing we seem interested in any more is money and getting high (and technology).
You seem to be implying that taking drugs is somehow "soulless" or "unnatural". Why is this? Personally I find that they merely enhance what is already there, they certainly don't turn me into something that wasn't there already. I'm honestly curious...
My IT occupation is
My drug of choice is
I disagree. Have you ever been stoned and played Quake? It's scary as all hell.
That's what I love about them high-school girls. I get older, they stay the same age... yes they do.
--Wooderson 1976
-- jimmycarter
This article is so ridiculous. It brings out what has always been a "bright lights, big city" sort of problem and assumes that just because another segment of population of LA and NY have found drugs, that something is wrong with high-tech culture.
It's a fact. People with money in NY and LA sometimes do coke, speed, and (rarely, I think) heroin. No big revelation there. The fact that the dot.com world intersects with entertainment and high finance (two worlds very immersed in the drug scenes for a *long* time) just means that it is more likely that the top-notch folks are exposed to that lifestyle.
In my experience in drug-rampant Detroit / Ann Arbor, no one I've met in high-tech has done anything other than booze, pot, and LSD/shrooms. The first is legal, the second is a relaxant that probably won't hurt you in small doses, and the third is attractive to creative people who want to expand their minds. No crisis here, folks, move on.
It's a strange world -- let's keep it that way
"Rooney... pardon my French, but you're an asshole!"
I personally don't do drugs (scared of needles)
I've never injected myself with anything and have been a drug bucket for years. Drugs doesn't have to be heroin you fuckwit, especially in this context. Do you think the story is talking about sysadmins doing 25 hours shifts smacked out of their eyeballs, lying in a corner with a bucket of blood and puke? No, you muppet, stimulants!
--
Please do not use this document as toilet tissue
Most people use glasses to do that.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Another "regular drug user" who tries to speak for the "underground drug use" masses. A pretty good sign is usually opinions such as "Most of the people I know" or "I can confidently state" that are tried to be spun as facts.
Hi. What separation of drug users is this you're talking about? Your "underground drug use" masses is an interesting concept, what exactly do you mean by this? What is the difference between a regular and an underground drug user? And are you really implying that these Silicon Valley types fall into the underground drug use group?
And you might want to know that addictive substances such as nicotine, heroin, and cocaine leads users to become abusers, because they eventually have to use it.
Oh really? Out of the three chemicals that you mention, nicotene is the most addictive, and even then a single hit won't get you addicted. Mild use without addiction can be acheived for all of these drugs. The myth of instant addiction is just that, a myth. Some drugs are more addictive than others sure, but there is no "take it once, you're doomed to be an addict" truth as you say.
12 years is the youngest I'll drink.
I like Dalwhinnie and Oban as well as Balvine Single Barrel 15 year old.
I'm a big fan of Balvine Singel Barrel because often you will get a 17-20 year old scotch for the price of a 15.
Caffeine and Alcohol are addictive hard drugs too. So what else is new?
-- Nothing is as subjective as reality --
or gamble (inefficient).
Gambling is apparently very uncommon amongst geeks. Someone told me that when there are technology shows in Vegas, the hotel prices go up because of this.
Now I use as and when I feel like it, and that's not a problem.
.02
that is what I thought. I have taken a break from drugs temporarily but in the past I felt that just b/c I was rolling only on the weekends it was ok, I wasn't understanding that dropping two/three pills every night every weekend was a problem. That was in addition to the fact that I smoked about an 1/8th of marijuana a day. I would wake up w/it, I would use it all day, and I would goto bed w/it. I thought b/c I was doing fine all day I wasn't hurting myself. Whether or not the reporter seems to be blowing this a bit out of proportion isn't my point...
Everywhere I go I see people getting baked (nothing wrong w/pot IMHO) but my point is that drugs are being used quite frequently, and I am SURE that this report is accurate to a degree. 55% of them are addicted to coke, 45% more are addicted to alcohol. 55% of a work force being addicted to a substance and most people turning the head away saying, "that is just the way it goes when the money flows" is fucking horseshit. These people want them to be hopped up on drugs to do their work. Let's face it. Programming is demanding and crazy. People need to do their jobs, and their bosses like the money. They think that it will wear off, but it doesn't. It is a vicious cycle that will never stop b/c of people that don't care to stop it when it needs to be stopped. Coming to work fucked up means you have a serious problem.
Just my worthless
- Bill
What have needles got to do with:
*Cannabis
*Mushrooms
*E
*LSD
*Ketamine
*Salvia
???
You`ve lost me, i`m afraid. Unless you`re talking about the loser drugs.
How many times have you been looking at old code and thought "What were they smoking when they wrote this?"
Every time I use a Unix derivative...
Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
"Information wants to be paid"
While I disagree with the conclusions of the article in general (I agree with the earlier poster who noted that the 'drug craze' mentioned in the article is more composed of individuals who are trying to ride the wave rather than hackers from the start) I have to take exception to this statement:
Like most press articles about drugs, they're failing to make the distinction between users and abusers.
there's no such thing as a 'user' of cocaine or any of the other hard-core drugs mentioned in the article, with the exception of prescription drugs. if you've progressed to the point that your conception of acceptable use includes these drugs, then chances are, you already have a problem.
Which isn't to say that someone who is abusing drugs can't get it under control themselves, without outside treatment. as spiralx noted, he apparently has some success in it. But the sinister allure of these drugs is that you are in control of them. Make no mistake--you aren't. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but with continued use, one day--these drugs will assert themselves over you and you'll have to acknowledge who's the boss.
The "typical engineer" in slightly nerdish popular literature of the last 70 years shows them as heavy smokers and coffee drinkers, with a tendency to hit the booze at the weekend parties. Readings of memoirs and whatnot of technical creative people for the last 200 years shows a similar tendency. Once there were alternative, cocaine in the later 1800s and amphetamines later on, they were used as well. An old retired ex-areonatical engineer once told me about the stimulant use by the design teams during WW2.
Caffeine was the target of a great deal of hostile writings when it was coming into popular use in Europe. Try http://www.quite.com/misc/tea1.htm as an example. There were drives to make one or another of the caffeine drinks illegal at various times in the previous century.
Downers were not that uncommon as well. A number of successful, famous people of the last 2 centuries used opium products and alcohol excessively. There's a tendency to cover up such usage, and with a loyal staff to help you through the bad days few people would know about it.
Then as now, exposés would trumpet the horrific state of people doing fill in career choice . The truly productive, creative people in that line avoided anything that would interfere with the fun of doing what they did, those who were more into pretending to be one of that group of folks tended to get lost in the socializing drug use.
Caffeine is an essential nutrient, necessary for proper brain function.
Yeah, you can believe that...on your way to jail and/or the unemployment line.
The old "drink lots of water" trick hasn't worked for a long time. Even 10 years ago, when I worked in an addiction treatment center, the latest generation of tests were incredibly sensitive to all sorts of drugs. Most people couldn't drink enough water to mask them out. Even if you *do* drink that much water, how stupid do you think these people are? There are several ways to mask drugs in urine, but all of them are obvious to even the most casual observer, no matter how mean their intelligence. If you mask, you'll be asked to retest. If you mask the second time, you may be asked to come in and spend the day with them while they observe your fluid intake.
If you don't want to get caught with a piss test, then you pretty much have to arrange it so you don't *take* a piss test.
Of course you could always just stop it with the drugs.
Drugs are great. For me, tho' it's coffee, pot and wine. In my younger days, well... heh... I did ALOT. There's a time and place for everything. I couldn't imagine smoking pot at work, cause I would just want to get the hell out of there. Coffee tho. I couldn't imagine writing code without it. Cocaine is also fun, but it's too easy to let it get out of hand, and become a problem. The problem with America is that nobody is taking responsibility for themselves. They smoke a pack a day for 40 years, get lung cancer, and then sue the cigarette companies. They deserve to be dead. Nature is like that, survival of the fittest.
-- "Perceptions create reality. By changing your perceptions you change your reality."
Oops - Didn't notice the link between Upside.com and Upside Media... My mistake.
The guy's dad is an arse, then.
Maybe the company could get done over their working conditions. But then that would probably take a geek union - and AFAIK techies aren't unionised much.
Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
"Information wants to be paid"
Don't forget the $3 crack that all the /. moderators smoke.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
There is no such place as "Wise County, NC". I live and work in the Research Triangle which is partly in *Wake County* (but mostly in Durham Co). And yes, the amount of coke seized in this area has gone up in the past few years, but the amount of E and other club drugs seized is far outstripping the 'conventional' drugs.
Eric
No mention of caffeine or nicotine?!? Methinks they didn't do real research, they just rented Wall Street from the local video store. The only drug that seems to be timeless is a cocktail of hubris and stupidity.
-MorboNixon in 2000
"Nixon is pro-family and pro-war!"
I totally agree, moderation is the key. I ended up dropping out of university early because I ended up addicted to amphetamines and it killed my ability to think for quite a while... but that's the only time I've ever had a problem. Now that I'm not caning it 24/7 it doesn't cause any more problems than going down the pub would, in fact it causes less - I don't usually end up puking and I don't have a hangover in the morning :)
I dunno, even if I wasn't a social pot smoker, I wouldn't take a drug test for a job. Its not worth it.
Drug testing doesn't show current impairment. What I did last friday night, on my free time, when my pager was off, is MY TIME. It is not my employers time. They have NO RIGHT to criticize how I spend that time.
My drug use is between me and my doctor (who BTW has never raised any objections to pot smoking - and yes, he knows). If my employer can't respect my right to live the lifestyle which I choose to live, whatever it may be, then that means that they do not respect me as an adult member of society.
I refuse to work for an employer that can't respect that my time is MY TIME.
The places that I, and people I know, work (which, for me, includes a hospital) have the following policy (in my words):
"We will drug test, if we believe that a person has been using drugs ON THE JOB"
Other than that they don't test. When it comes to suspecting current impairment, during working hours, I am all for making sure people arn't high. But again - testing doesn't show current impairment. It shows evidence of use within the past 3-30 days (depending on the drug).
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
High bandwidth = low ping = less time refreshing server list in Tribes and Counterstrike = more time to post on /.
the circle of life...
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
Welcome to the Netherlands, where the government actually figured that smoking a little pot is not the same thing as putting a needle in your arm. Now we only need to convince them that it is a medicinal need and needs to be refunded by health insurance(this is currently being investigated).
The interesting thing is that most eductated young people over here do not touch the stuff simply because the fact that it is allowed makes it a lot less interesting...
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Jobs can does this to people Doctors, Lawyers, Actors,Actresses,Singers, and yes Techies. When sucess or stress is thrusted upon people they look for an escape from thier life. So sometimes they do drugs. They drink themself stupid. This article is no surprise to me at all.
Caffeine is not a drug, it is an essential nutrient, neccessary for proper brain function.
The sad reality is that many people don't realize the importance of true leisure time in the makeing of a healthy human body. It is unfortunate that many turn to drugs, but it's a fact that can be avoided. Some major companies out there don't offer overtime compensation -- and that is just one of the many measures taken to prevent their employees from overworking. My old company (an Engineering firm), actually gave bonuses for our projects getting complete before estimated hours. They even provided additional benefits (reasons) not to work any overtime. Other companies require so much in consecutive vacation time every year. All this, just to keep the well being of their employees in good condition.
More businesses should start doing business this way. We don't need a bunch of Zombies holding the country by the balls.
exactly! unfortunately, most people don't understand that 'statistics' can be bent to show almost anything. sensationalist media bothers me.
people who have no knowledge whatsoever regarding drug use tend to make knee-jerk reactions. those reactions tend to be of the kind that say "you're using drugs! you must have a problem! i *must* try to save you!" that's Bad and Wrong. some people with problems use drugs to escape those problems, and that's also Bad and Wrong. but others use them to enjoy life, the same way that some people use alcohol or tobacco or vitamins or exercise or television or [insert favourite way to spend time].
bottom line, most of the people referred to in the article don't want or need to be saved. and most of them probably don't have a 'problem', either. if you personally want to help, do one of two things: mind your own business, or work towards legalizing these drugs, so that the point is moot.
and if companies want to do something, stay out of your employees personal life, and don't expect them to work 80+ hours per week!
cheers,
vlad drac
When I started with my new employeer about 5 months ago it was agreed that if I was required to do any coding in Java I would be high.
What drugs does the IT Olymics concider performance enhancing anyhow?
You only have to witness the trollish and first post underworld of /. to realise this has been going on for a long time
Special Relativity: The person in the other queue thinks yours is moving faster.
Fair enough, but you'll notice that I started my comment with "In my experience". Naturally, others will have different experiences...
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
Alright, all you history geeks can come out of the closet now. Who all had a sudden mental image of a nerd in profile, poised on one foot, other leg lifted and arms raised as if he were climbing an invisible ladder?
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
And for the other guy - it's Aberlour.
Anyway Balvenie is my favourite, even the 10 year...
Drugs are for the weak.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
Now we'll have programs shooting out eastereggs and programmers of word processors will have a spellchecker of Cheech & Chong representations. "The word peronsly is not correct man, you should use stoned, drugdealer, hash smoker, messed up. Man, use that instead...man." Quake will have a buggy drug module, picking up dope, weed, cocaine, and then having the option of smoking it all; hearing the words "That's the stuff.. Oh yeah...." watching your vision get clouded, your strength going up a bit, and coughing sounds so you won't be a surprise to anyone your trying to kill. Let's just hope it doesn't get into the web browser. Words misspelled, Icons which should be mail, chat, history icons will be of drugs. etc. etc.
dotcomtelecom.com! world headquarters (AP): Every morning, Bart Flanders rolls out of bed, throws on some clothes, and goes to work. Sixteen hours later, he is still there, finishing a major project for his company, dotcomtelecom.com!. He has worked for six days straight on this schedule and, nearly consumed by exhaustion and stress, now has a choice.
"I've been drug free for all of my life," Bart says, pacing outside his office building. A green sign across the street catches his eye. "The product has to ship tomorrow. Our investors will be there for the rollout. If I can just pull one more all-nighter, we can do this. Everyone else on my team is doing it." He pauses, and a weary smile crosses his face. "Wow, I never thought I'd actually say that. It's so, like, just like an after school special. I guess this is how junkies get started."
For all too many programmers, Bart's dillema is a familiar one. Known on the street as 'joe', 'code juice' and 'venti', use of coffee is increasingly prevalent among the programming digiterati. And experts are alarmed by its rapid gains among the road crews of our nation's cyber-highway.
"Cocaine and binge drinking have always been pretty standard among the CEOs. And LSD and marijuana are pretty much job requirements in marketting. We in Vice are used to cruising through a startup on tuesdays and thursdays, busting half the company or more," Lt. Chuck Wagner reports. He leads the 'Internet Startup Division' of the Los Gatos police department. "What's got us worried are these techie guys. I mean, I can understand a CEO needing a few lines to unwind with two of his girlfriends after a hard day. I mean these guys have stressful lives, what with being proactive and all that. But why would a mere techie be doing joe? We're watching them-- we know they're not partying. So what are they doing with their time? That's the big mystery."
Techies, as they are fondly known by their pals in marketting, are the socially dysfunctional experts who provide internet startups with valuable mockups and beta copies to show to investors. These computer geniuses are valued employees, and are carefully shielded from such terrible messes as senior staff meetings, strategy sessions and promotions.
"I don't understand it at all," confides Laura Graham, VP of operations for dotcomtelecom.com!. "I mean, we don't let these guys make any decisions whatsoever. They don't have to go to conferences, parties, etc. And I don't let them anywhere near the wild, hallucenigenic orgies which I am rumored to host. All we ask in return is that they ship a product with wildly varying requirements within hours of the unrealistic deadline we promised to the venture capital firm which is just trying to test the waters before investing in our competitor. I mean, how hard is that? It isn't like they are adaptivating, or strategizing, or playing golf. We let them play on the magic glass boxes, and we talk about the magical wonderland which is javaembeddedinternetconnectedfutureVR-TML 5.0."
"Laura just doesn't get it," Bart says with a shrug. "We're trying to create a more secure ecommerce model, and she's telling us to do it in Virtual Reality. She hasn't even been to work in two weeks." Bart is still tempted by the green sign across the street. It should be easier in his cubicle, where there are no distracting windows, but there, the smell of espresso is strong.
"It boils down to this: I have a job to do, and x hours to do it in. Without some joe, I won't be able to finish. You tell me what I need to do. I know the risks. I've lost good friends to coffee. I've seen the desperation, the shakes, the demented ravings of people crashing after a two day high. I know people who have two hundred dollar a week habits, and that's not counting cream and sugar. I've heard the cries of pain and anguish from the men's restroom. But I have to do this. Just this once."
Bart returns to his desk a few minutes later, with a paper cup and a sharp, edgy expression. On his desk is a bag with enough pure, uncut joe to last nearly a week. Its street value is at least $50.
"I know what this looks like. But I'm not a junkie. Once we've shipped our product, I'm throwing this out. It's only this once." Bart's expression turns plaintive; he fortifies himself with another sip. "You don't think I'm going to be an addict now, do you? I don't want to die."
The Dissociated Press Contributed to this report.
It's always stricken me as amusing that all the pinball machines in coffee shops here in Amsterdam display the "Winners don't use drugs" message :)
--
Pokéthulhu
Gotta catch you all!
Actually most OTC cough medicine contains DXM - a dissasociative anasthetic (in the same class as ketamine). Did it once or twice. Real shitty high. Wouldn't do it again (plus there is evidence now of possible brain damage from excessive use)
Some people really love the stuff, I can't imagine why. It actually has a worst high than alcohol. ugh!
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
How would define 'mild use'? Once a week, month? My experiences with addictive substances were that I started out with casual use and eventually, as my use became more frequent, found myself hooked. Hard.
Totally, I agree. But mild use is possible, although I'm sure how you'd define it varies from person to person. And the more addictive the substance, the more careful you do have to be with the amount and frequency you take.
Now I am not condemning anyone who uses drugs or saying that using something is going to get you hooked and ruin your life. But there is a real danger of physical addiction to a lot of people and discounting addiction as a 'myth' is kind of denying reality.
I'm not saying addiction is a myth - having been there I know damn well it isn't. But the one hit addict is a myth. And yes, I did misread the post I replied to... ah well it's only /. :)
> You can use the needle once and get away with
> it, the second time you're hooked for life.
Really? I am sorry but I have never heard of this before. Why is heroin so different from all other drugs of addiction?
With everything else that I am fammilair with, like caffeine (which I had a nice addiction to for a while), when the withdrawl syndrome goes away, so does the craving.
Now...there may be a psycological craving. Afterall, it does feel good, but its hardly the same.
> I have known people, however, who used heroin
> on a daily basis after dinner while keeping on
> functioning as a normal social animal.
Very true. Addicts can function as normal human beings quite easily. Its extremely high drug prices and legality issues that usually present the most problems.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Someone said, The "war on drugs" has been going on since the Reagan/Bush era " ...
Bullshit. Or haven't you ever heard of Prohibition? Different name, same game.
And every prosperous era in history has had a similar class of people who don't know any way to live or work except to overdo it.
The real point is that all too many geeks have addictive/obsessive personalities. If it isn't drugs, then it's coding, or endorphins (often generated thru some form of self-abuse), or cruising the net, or whatever. Running on overload ALL the time, one way or another.
It's a helluva dangerous way to live. Sooner or later it'll burn you up. If you don't think so, it's only because you're still young and immortal.
Reading thru this set of posts is downright scary.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
"You can use the needle once and get away with it"
So you aren't correcting that statement.
You are agreeing with that statement.
Actually, "regular" in this context means someone who performs an action on a fixed basis. Your confusion seems to lie in the fact that you think I'm saying regular == normal.
Oh really? Out of the three chemicals that you mention, nicotene is the most addictive, and even then a single hit won't get you addicted. Mild use without addiction can be acheived for all of these drugs. The myth of instant addiction is just that, a myth. Some drugs are more addictive than others sure, but there is no "take it once, you're doomed to be an addict" truth as you say.
And hence my point. Can you point me to the paragraph in the article that has the myth about "take once, you're doomed to be an addict"? If they want to use it enough, eventually they will have to. Don't assume that everyone is taking drugs as "responsible" as you are.
i don't think "thinking" has anything to do with it. i know that smoking's not a smart thing to do, i've seen the statistics, seen the pictures of smokers' lungs, and still i started smoking.
"Leave the gun, take the canoli."
this is just a placeholder till i send back my real sig from the future.
I personally don't do drugs (scared of needles), drink (hate the taste of alchohol), smoke (allergic to tobacco smoke) or gamble (inefficient).
.. or have sex (dick too small).
You must be the most boring person on the planet. Turn off your computer and, like your subject line says, 'get out' and live a little.
LOL! I just love statements like this!! Let's see here. Hmm, out everyone I know that use stimulants, don't drink? *Think* *Think* AH! None! They all drink alcohol!! Does it say that 100% of caffine junkies use heroin? Nope. How about 100% of meth users use Valium? Nope. Just people who use stimulants one of these. *Duh*
Nice how an or can be used to scare people.
Now I use as and when I feel like it, and that's not a proble. I'd imagine it's the same in Silicon Valley, not the den of burnt out addicts that they're trying to portray. Sure there are people that are going to fuck up big time, and it's a tragic loss, but these cases are the minority compared to the huge numbers of people who use regularly without a problem.
According to anit-drug clueless fools you can't use illegal drug and not be a basement dewelling burnt out that is a treat to all people near you. The more they push this idea, the harder it will be to legal drugs.
MarNuke
In the UK, Bass are one of the big nitro-keg brewers, producing Worthington, Stones and other horrors. Horrible, but Scottish and Newcastle (John Smiths, Theakstons) is even worse.
You want real, cask conditioned, ale. I could name hundreds of small breweries.
sorry. i can't agree with you. i know too many people who self-destructed with drugs - from tobacco and alcohol onwards. there are physical realities about the ways our bodies are wired and all the cool talk of "i can handle it," rings a tad hollow to those of us who have parents, siblings, kids and friends who have wrecked their lives and maimed those around them.
i don't like the "war on drugs," in the states and like most liberals (before they got pressured into the "tough on crime" stance from the "law and order except in opponents hotel rooms") i protested against it at the time. however people in the states keep voting conservative so i suppose they get what they deserve.
however for the most part "recreational" drug use does far more to fuck up people's lives then it does to make them better. i'd be inclined to say the same about religion in many countries as well.
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
UBU
"I am an evolved being. I *know* it's all lies."
Ok...so exactly what was that last one laced with?
And bandwidth. Lots of it. Too bad I can't get my DSL line fed in intravenously.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
"I believe my son was a victim of the dot-com boom," said David Bunnell, the 53-year-old chief executive of Upside Media..."I knew he was drinking a lot and taking uppers to stay awake. I didn't think it was much of a problem. I didn't see it."
"Everyone has coke, especially up north," said a chief executive of a Los Angeles-based dot-com..."If your friends don't have it, or your [banker] doesn't have it, then it's a phone call away. It's like ordering a martini. It's no big deal."
"I see programmers who start their day by stirring meth into their cup of coffee," said the Rev. Katherine O'Connell, a clinical psychologist and interfaith minister
"Want to know how easy it is to score a gram of coke? My friend and I recently went to a bar in Venice Beach where everyone there was a dot-commer," said a PR manager for a entertainment firm. "My friend asked the doorman where she could get some coke. One minute and $60 later, she had a gram."
"He was always so clean, I never worried about him getting into serious drugs," said Bunnell. "His mother's a drug and alcohol counselor. We never saw this coming."
"It was pretty clear he had a substance-abuse problem," said a former Upside editorial staffer. "Given the intensity of the [dot-com] community, it's not surprising."
[Conspiracy-on]
Who/What is responsible for this sentimental, cliché, over dramatic propaganda? Do people with money do crazy things with drugs? Yes. Does this have to do with 'dot-com' mania? No. What social force is this article trying to further? Why have I read this same damned article 10^987 times before? WTF?
[Conspiracy-Off
Reality: Like the article says: "drug usage is America is at an all time low" (paraphrase). Thats the bottom line.
Reality: Stupid people take stupid destructive drugs: Using cocaine like your fucking invincible is idiotic. Thats why learned, intelligent, adjusted, capable people never take cocaine/heroin. It is tremendously addictive, and that means YOU TOO WILL BE A VICTIM. An example of Darwinism if you may...
Reality: The motivation behind this 'expose' shocker of a story we have here is not an altruistic display of worry. This is meant to further some campaign, wrought by some 'body', for some purpose, if not to simply sell ad-exposure to sheeple. The unfortunate thing is this poor guy who obviously didn't know his ass-from a hole in the ground is responsible for his own death. Period. If I gave this same idiot a gun would he play russian roulette for jollies? There are a million idiotic self destructive things you can do to yourself, and none of the motivations is the Internet.
What the hell is this article really trying to tell the public...?
BTW: My apologies to anyone who knew him personally. Im sure this article is not even speaking to the person he was (for better or worse as is always the case).
Use Democracy! Tell your friends/neighbours/relatives/co-workers to:
Well, I would say my drug experiences have been vastly different from those in the article. I would notice that *managment*, rather than coders or admins (well, *true* admins/coders as someonelse posted), do stimulants to get more work done. Every coder I've talked to refused to do them for a variety of reasons, most of which revolved around abusing your body in such a way being a Bad Thing (tm).
:)
Others I know, will at most do something different occasionally, say 3-4 times a year. Not coke, or speed, or anything of the sort. The folks I know do hallucinogenics (bad sp, sorry, it's early), mainly LSD, mushrooms, and a handful of other drugs that are still legal (check erowid for more, like DXM (cough syrup, yummy), 2cb, or 2ct7).
Generally, and this is in Tx and Ca, so it could be screwed, this is just done to relax with friends, not to fuel the burn they talk about at pre-IPO companies.
While I would disagree about the actual drug use patterns, and the drugs they abuse, I would agree with how wide-spread drug use really is. The only guys I know of who don't do drugs are the older guys, who now have families/etc. However, in reminiscent talks with them, they had the same patterns as their younger generation (us). They'd smoke out, drop acid, and just trip for a night.
I dunno, both groups use drugs, but for some reason the ones in the latter half don't abuse them (and themselves) like the people in the article. I think this has been documented elsewhere, who knows. The people I know use drugs occasionally, and recreationally, not as "business practice". They're also coders, and not driven by managerial/peer pressure. They write what they want, down the still legal caffeine, and code for hours.
I dunno. I see people trying to ban drugs and drug use due to the people in that article, which I disagree with. Read Liar's Poker (by the same guy that wrote The New-New Thing), talks about the decadent and luxurious lifestyle of the 80's. It's the same thing here. If people want to run themselves into the ground, I'd warn them, but you can't stop them, they'll do it one way or another. If you have a friend like this, help them out by telling them what they're doing to themselves. But, don't pass a law against it. You're going to end up with more of the unenforced mess of drugs we have already.
But, I could be wrong.
hear hear
-- This sig is.
"GRACE!!!!"
hmmmm define "food or drink"?
Cough Suryp is liquid and is drunk, is it a drink?
Beer is a drink, ok. What about whiskey (which is drunk in the same way as cough suryp...fast)
If I bake my pot into brownies...then thats not a drug anymore right? Or if I put my mushrooms on pizza?
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
You're in denial, sweetpea.
...not a problem.
I've recently dug myself out of the ditch you're digging. Snap out of it. You are lying to yourself. Your chemistry is no different than anyone elses.
illegitimii non ingravare
The eighties relfected all this in their evening drammaz... and it's coming back again, just look at the new fall line up. Power, greed, drugs and 'puters. Then again, hasn't it always been there? The drugs, the alochol? Beer in the office, beer at company meetings? http://www.ubersoft.net/comics/hd19991110e.gif
Face it, people are stupid, and the internet is the place where they all meet.
The story was posted around 9:30am EST and it's only 11:30am. All the good drug users won't be up for a couple of hours now. So I'm going to wait a couple of hours for the insightful comments.
Check into it.
Engage in it.
Deal with it.
Drugs are a great way to avoid reality and shorten your longevity. So, reality-avoiders, continue to use. Soon, you'll be another burn out who can't spell your own name or worse...Body bags, here you come!
--
"You're gonna need a bigger boat." - Chief Brody
The only thing they care about is your ability to FUNCTION. Snorting coke and speed, and getting stoned every night after work impairs your function on THEIR TIME regardless if you did the drug on YOUR TIME. YOUR TIME has nothing to do with it. When you become enefficient on THEIR TIME because of what you do on YOUR TIME then they can kick your ass out and you can go flip burgers or something. I'd rather do my job effectively, and drive a nice sports car. Woot! Your choice, bud.
I eat the flesh off the living, and I vote!
I'm about 150km east of you(Enschede, aka Crater City) and those pinball thingies say exactly the same thing over here.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
The people who 'self-destructed' on drugs were probably the people whose lives were already fucked-up, yes? That's certainly the case in my experience. Society would be better off trying to combat the causes of why people turn to drugs rather than fighting against a so-called 'drug menace'. People who use drugs in a genuinely recreational way rarely get into trouble in with them.
---
> Snorting coke and speed, and getting stoned
> every night after work impairs your function
> on THEIR TIME regardless if you did the drug on
> YOUR TIME.
So will going out to clubs, dancing, picking up chicks and staying up fucking them till 4 am and dragging as sinto work 4 hours later.
I have yet to see any employer that has a policy about whether or not employees are allowed to go out and pick up women (or men) when they have work the next day.
I wouldn't work for one that did, even though I don't engage in such activities.
I am at work for certain hours on certain days. What I do outside of those hours is my buisness. WHEN and only when it actually effects my work does my employer have a right to ask me to stop or to leave.
Personally, I have been a casual drug user for years. Little pot now and again, couple of times a week. Maybe the ocasionaly acid trip - over a weekend or something when I am not on call. I have NEVER allowed it to effect my work.
And no...I don't flip burgers, never have in fact (well not outside of my own kitchen). I much prefer spending my days writting code.
hmmm you know slashdot has prevented me from getting more work done than anything that ive done outside of work....
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Ohmigod!
That's, like, 1000 trips! Hardcore!
Seriously, don't you mean micrograms?
-- Sig Sig Sputnik
ice = crystal meth.
*shakes head*
As I said, "losers do drugs", man.
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
I seem to recall a somewhat recent controversy concerning the White House recruiting Hollywood in the "War against Drugs" campaign. Maybe this is an extension we don't know about.
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. -Friedrich Nietzsche
... Anything else is posing..
OK, maybe a little Mary Jane..
Still, didn't we as a culture have our fill of snotass coke snorters thumbing their noses and acting all stupid in the 80s?
Don't we have really expensive technogear to blow all that overpaid $$$ on?
Whatever..
Your Working Boy,
Oh please, please tell me that you mean ~150 ug NOT mg... Otherwise, I'll go call the local /loony/bin for you, and they can give you a nice padded room and straight jacket, and lots of risperdal, zyprexa, etc.
christ... 150mg of this stuff is like 1500+ hits a day. I highly doubt that you're doing that :-)
tagline
... hi bingo
Another "regular drug user" who tries to speak for the "underground drug use" masses. A pretty good sign is usually opinions such as "Most of the people I know" or "I can confidently state" that are tried to be spun as facts.
Almost all people fall into the category of users - they might take a hell of a lot, but it's because they want to, not because they have to.
And you might want to know that addictive substances such as nicotine, heroin, and cocaine leads users to become abusers, because they eventually have to use it.
The parent post is no different than posts which whine about Linux's lack of unified GUI overhyped because everyone he knows (and himself, as a "regular Linux user") only uses the command-line. The dot-com world these days demand high hours, and with their pretty high disposable income, why isn't it suprising that drug use is on the rise? No one is saying that drug use isn't prevalent across other industries. They're simply pointing out that drug use is increasing in the tech sector.
As you can probably tell I'm sick of these scare stories taking a complete non-event and trying to turn them into news.
Yo yoyoyo G, thanks for the insight from the underground. Wanna go light a K bud?
there's no such thing as a 'user' of cocaine or any of the other hard-core drugs mentioned in the article, with the exception of prescription drugs. if you've progressed to the point that your conception of acceptable use includes these drugs, then chances are, you already have a problem.
Hello? Have you ever tried coke? Sure, it's damn nice and you do get the urge for some more, but it's no more than the urge you get to drink more when you've had a few. I've done coke quite a few times, and I've never felt some mad craving to rush out and get some more. I treat coke as a "party drug" for special occasions only. Hell, I haven't had any since Christmas, and it's not because I couldn't get/afford it.
You seem to have fallen under the propaganda spread by people like Barry McCaffrey (America's anti-drug main man) that drugs like cocaine, crack and heroin are instantly addictive and that casual use is impossible. This is nonsense in the same vein that "Reefer madness" was. Sure, they are addictive, but not to the point where a single hit makes you an abuser.
But the sinister allure of these drugs is that you are in control of them. Make no mistake--you aren't. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but with continued use, one day--these drugs will assert themselves over you and you'll have to acknowledge who's the boss.
The reason I got started with the problem was that I started doing it every day. This was because I had a lot of work at the time, and the speed helped me get it done. But I still take the stuff now, just sensibly when I'm going out or something. I'm not going to make the same mistake, there's no hidden catch that will turn me back into a speed freak six months down the line.
You mean Weird Science (not breakfast club)! (Common, that's the one where they use their computer to make a real life woman (Kelly Le Brock))! Ah, who cares! I'm off to the Kelly Le Brock website!(http://www.kellylebrock.net/)... later! c > mholve (mike@nospam.eunuchs.org) on Monday October 02, @09:45AM EDT http://eunuchs.org/linux ...da chicks can't hold de smoke. Dat's what da problem is...
Yes, that's from the Breakfast Club - so sue me. :)
Yes because drinking until you puke and are hung oer is definitely drinking in moderation.
Spencer Ogden
Fuckin' A!
This is one of the first reasonable posts I've read on this thread today.
The entire article read like drug-war propaganda. Talking about the drug problem making its way into our mainstrean-whitey society like there's no stopping it...and we should all hang our heads due to the ills of our drug abusing society.
Anyway, I'm glad that there's still folks like you out there who can think for themselves. I'm a techie -- and a pot-smoker. By my own standards (that's what's important, isn't it?) I'm successful. So what's the problem? (Other than this fucking drug war making me a criminal) There's no dirty little secret, and my drug use is hardly 'rampant'.
I'm upset by the LA Times' piss-poor journalism. Again, this is just drug-war propaganda. Disregard it.
-Turkey
Heh, It doesnt matter its the truth, any seirous usage of drugs takes you no where, asking how old he is? That is pretty lame... lame lame lame.
Drugs are not cool, drugs fuck your life and take your money.
Anyways..
*shrugs*
You are agreeing with that statement.
Good example of what the people writing the article did. Take out one piece and completely ignore the rest of the comment.
Seems you're making the same mistake.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
chances are you're using drugs even if you ARE a mormon.. nutmeg comes to mind. I'm glad that cup-pissing for a job is an unlawful breach of privacy in europe..
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Still wondering how you type correctly when being high/stoned/drunk/whatever/
Hey, here's a site that runs slashcode for the benefit of marijuiana users and advocates: SmokeDot
THE STUFF has gotten me past all 4 whiz quizzes I've ever had to take. I now no longer will work for a company that requires my pee. There are plenty of companies now that don't care how you spend YOUR TIME, as long as the quality of your work holds up. That's probably the best thing about this industry, your education doesn't matter, your off-time activities don't matter, nothing matters except what you can produce.
-Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music.
Aside from the fact that this is sensationalist journalism as others have pointed out, did anybody wonder about this guy's father?
Early in the article, he's quoted as saying, "I knew he was drinking a lot and taking uppers to stay awake. I didn't think it was much of a problem. I didn't see it"
So he knows his son is abusing drugs (alcohol is a drug, albeit legal). Then later in the article, he is quoted as saying, "He was always so clean, I never worried about him getting into serious drugs," said David Bunnell. "His mother's a drug and alcohol counselor. We never saw this coming."
Now, IANAF (I am not a father), but if I see my kid heavily using alcohol and uppers, I'm going to think that something is up. What the father really should have said is, "We never wanted to believe he would get into serious drugs. We didn't take the obvious warning signs seriously enough."
But, instead of admitting that he might be even a tiny bit responsible or negligent (remember his sone was also an employee) the father says, "I believe my son was a victim of the dot-com boom." YEAH, WORKING FOR YOUR DOT-COM, DAD.
My cynical side says this is natural selection at work.
Eureka! When the E-commerce bubble bursts, we can blame it on Columbia!
It's $3 crack now? Jeez, last time I had mod points it was $2 crack. I'd better start posting so I can get some mod points and some of that really awesome $3 crack!
Durham anything, Oakham White Dwarf, Ash Vine Black Bess, and so on.
And a local brewery (Daleside) has started brewing a beer called Duff, legally. Bottled only AFAIK, and difficult to find. Mmmmm - Duff Beer!
Hmm, looks like I'm on Acid today. This should of course have been attached to the previous parent.
Doh.
-- Sig Sig Sputnik
Second data point: Yep...it's true. As someone who uses banks, I was glad to see that they did check me for drug use before allowing me on a contract for check processing systems. After the banking contract, I moved on to a sensitive government contract and was stunned that they didn't include drug tests along with the FBI background check. I told the interviewer this, and from the look on his face he hadn't even considerd it before.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Really? I am sorry but I have never heard of this before. Why is heroin so different from all other drugs of addiction?
Unfortunately I didn't get to hear it either. I saw it happening, and no, the people to whom it happened weren't people I disliked...
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Now, as far as my own use goes, I had a beer last month, and I got a little dizzy from a magic-marker while writing on a whiteboard. And that's about it. I've been working as a sowtware engineer for the past two years and I've found that I can't party like I used to and do a good job at work. Very few of the people that I work with are serious dopers.(AFAIK) But when I worked in restaurants, my co-workers and I were pretty much f**ked up all the time. Toke up in the morning, a little crystal in the early afternoon to get through the lunch rush, beer after lunch rush, then the waitresses would bring shooters to the cooks before dinner shift, more pot after dinner shift, and then after work we would really party. And this was five or six days a week.
Ok - so they're talking about dot-com businesses, some of the most exploitative businesses ever, with some poor guy working ludicrous hours of the day on their computer systems rather than hiring more people to spread out the work.
Is there any wonder people are turning to artificial stimulants somewhat stronger than caffeine?
This guy was working either fourteen hours a day every day of the week - or twenty hour days on weekdays, however you look at it.
If I was working those hours, I'd need speed to keep me going!
Actually, I wouldn't work those hours. Fuck no!
That guy's father should sue the shit out of the company which exploited his son that way. NOBODY needs to work that much. If you're doing 100 hour weeks, either you're crap at your job and can't get things done in time, or you're being exploited by your employers who should HIRE MORE STAFF.
That company worked that guy into an early grave, to cope with the ludicrous hours he took uppers, then he had to take downers to come down at the end of the day. Vicious circle, in which he was the victim...
Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
"Information wants to be paid"
This is not possible, because the War on Drugs has been on for nearly 16 years, and the public service announcements telling us not to do drugs have been on since we were all impressionable teenagers. I know that the "Just Say No" PSAs, which began when I was a teenager, helped me steer clear of the demon temptations of my peers all throughout college. And thanks to the work of D.A.R.E., etc., an entire generation knows what various drugs look like and why they are to be avoided. Therefore, the story must be wrong.
--
I've seen guys walk into a piss test with a knotted condom of a clean friends urine safety pinned to the inside of their keks. You use the safety pin to prick the end of the condom and squirt it into the bottle
This worked fine until one guy put the pin right through the condom making a hole in either side. He told me he had to climb on the seat and wipe the piss off the ceiling... with the nurse sitting just outside the cubicle.
I just stuck with the drinking lots of water trick, even though I was doubtful as to it's usefullness ever since the nurse recommended it one time when I wasn't... erm... in the mood
I agree with your assessment of the article. I disagree with your assessment of the situation. Your assessment largely sounds like a web of rationalization and self-justification. It has about as much hard data behind it as the news report does.
They aren't trying to portray it as a den of burnt out addicts. They're trying to portray it as a place where extreme pressure drives people to drug use in an attempt to cope. Big difference. One isn't credible, one is.
I've seen the kind of stress people go through in those companies. I have friends who work in a few of them. Horrible, I would never move there to work. It doesn't surprise me that people turn to meth to try to give themselves the ability to put in the hours and concentration needed.
But doing that is like having an incredibly high burn rate for your VC money. Someday, your body is going to give out.
I think news of someone dying because they chose a stupid coping mechanism and abused it is news that should be heard. Perhaps not without all the references to the word 'fast' and the subtle implication that stricter drug laws and mandatory testing were somehow a good idea. But it serves as a good warning that some people like you might actually heed.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
If there weren't a war on drugs we'd be in serious trouble! But, luckily our government funnels a few billion dollars to law enforcement who make a *real* effort to stop the drugs in this country! The "war on drugs" has been going on since the Reagan/Bush era and as you can see -- it isn't working one bit. What they need to do is stop arresting people for drugs and throwing them in jail -- focus on treating drug abuse as an illness instead of a crime! We need more places where people can get help for their problem - not more prisons!
Wait: you mean you don't buy the logic behind "arguement by anecdote"?
Judging by the amount of such logic I find in the majority of newsprint I'm beginning to wonder if journalists are actually taught this type of reasoning in journalism school.
Dave "I don't even believe anything I write" Bacon
Perhaps you should cut back on tokin' then you'd remember! ;>
If hotel prices actually were to increase in Vegas, it's probably because all of the dot-com millionaires could afford them anyway.
Truth is, during COMDEX recently, it was reported that the (ahem) "escort" industry was reaching new levels of (ahem) "utilization." Turns out there are some things that just don't come naturally to geeks.
For more information, click here.
Somehow I had gottten this rosy picture that engineers (especially software engineers), being people who were paid to think, would be smarter than to use drugs. I personally don't do drugs (scared of needles), drink (hate the taste of alchohol), smoke (allergic to tobacco smoke) or gamble (inefficient).
Now that I look over that list of reasons, none of them is "because I'm smart". Maybe thinking has nothing to do with it.
--
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
I had the following forwarded to me the other day. I know posting these sort of things is a bit wanky, but I couldn't help myself. The logic is irrefutable:
A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo, and when theherd is hunted, It is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first.
This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole is maintained or even improved by the regular culling of the weakest members.
In much the same way, the human brain can operate only as fast as the slowest brain cells through which the electrical signals pass. Recent epidemiological studies have shown that while excessive intake of alcohol kills off brain cells, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. Thus, regular consumption of beer helps eliminate the weaker cells, constantly making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. The result of this in-depth study verifies and validates the causal link between all-weekend parties and job related performance. It also explains why, after a few short years of leaving a university and getting married, most professionals cannot keep up with the performance of the new graduates. Only those few that stick to the strict regimen of voracious alcoholic consumption can maintain the intellectual levels that they achieve during their college years.
So, this is a call to arms. As our country is losing its technological edge, we must not shudder in our homes. Get back into the bars. Quaff that pint. Your company and country need you to be at your peak, and you shouldn't deny yourself the career that you could have.
---
Bollocks. Like most press articles about drugs, they're failing to make the distinction between users and abusers.
It's simply a matter of experiances. It's easy to figure out who the abusers are because they stand out in a crowd (absenteeism, acting stranger than usual, going to rehab) while the users go un-noticed. They are able to hide it well because they're perfectly functional. So, a doctor is going to be sure that 100% of users come to a bad end since he will only see the fraction that do have a problem.
No matter what it is (including water) there's going to be someone who manages to consume it to excess and come to a bad end (yes, it HAS happened with water).
Losers need drugs.
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
>but there is no "take it once, you're doomed to be an addict" truth as you say.
Notice his use of words like 'leads' and 'eventually'.
You are right. I've never heard of anyone being 'instantly addicted' after a single use of any substance. But that didn't sound like what he was saying.
>Mild use without addiction can be acheived for all of these drugs.
How would define 'mild use'? Once a week, month? My experiences with addictive substances were that I started out with casual use and eventually, as my use became more frequent, found myself hooked. Hard.
What he said was true for me. Casual, recreational use of some of these drugs lead to abuse and addiction. It happened gradually, but I did reach a point where I _had_ to keep dosing myself because I had become addicted. Quitting was the hardest thing I ever did.
I'm sure that different people have different propensity to addiction. I knew a lot of guys that went to the same parties and didn't seem to reach the same level of abuse that I and some of my close friends did. I don't know what made us different.
One guy in particular really screwed up and landed in prison as a result of his spiraling down into addiction and crime. Maybe he had other problems, I don't know, but it was enough to make me stop and see my own condition. This is probably what motivated me to change my behavior.
Now I am not condemning anyone who uses drugs or saying that using something is going to get you hooked and ruin your life. But there is a real danger of physical addiction to a lot of people and discounting addiction as a 'myth' is kind of denying reality.
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
unless you count the caffine in my double expresso/hot chocolate/cappicina in a monster-sized mug that I down every morning...but when you work in Tech help you have to do what you can... Seriously... I thought most tech jobs out there require drug testing....mine certainly did.
Because experience shows that even a little bit of drug and alcohol use impairs your ability to act responsibly, so other people have to take that responsibility for you.
How do you firgure? At the end of the day when all your responsibilities are meet (work, school, socail clubs, etc) you smoke a joint before you go to bed. How is this inresponsibile? You don't have any responsibiles to do (done at the begining of the day), you aren't putting anyone else in danger, I fall to see your point.
It is like saying "Because experience shows that even a little bit of Diablo 2 and Quake 3 use impairs your ability to act responsibly, so other people have to take that responsibility for you"
Sure if you skip work to play Diablo 2, this probably isn't the healthes thing to do, but if the only time you play Diablo 2 is AFTER you get everything else done.
I still fail to see your point.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Actually, it is, and it's very addicting. I was addicted for years in college. I had 3 days of sever withdrawl when I quit. I had to quit because it was making me sick (doctor's orders). Caffeine is bad shit. You just won't hear that coming from the soft drink or coffee industries.
Because the only facts in the story were:
.com
...there are no statistics showing that drug and alcohol addiction afflicts technology workers more than the general population...
.com or ISP these days. Everyone at my last company was audited, and I know of folks at several others who have been targetted as well. It's easy to hit someone who doesn't/can't make the time to fight back.
a) somebody died after going to a party and mixing drugs in an irresponsible manner. They worked at a
b) Intel tests for drug use.
c) Self explanatory statement, probably most truthful one in the whole story is:
Now, the rest of the article is padded with statements from anonymous official and experts, none of whom are cited.
Just two more things...Intel isn't the only one employing piss sherriffs. However, I won't work for a company that tests, because there is this interesting corrallary where I have found that companies that test offer the lowest wages and benefits to people in my field. Intel is one of those companies.
I have also noticed some backlash against tech workers lately. Lots of people find it convenient to blame tech workers as the source of skyrocketing housing and inflation. Also, the state franchise tax board in CA and the IRS seem to take great interest in anyone working for a
'Hail Eris, baby, hail Eris...pfffffffttt.' *cough* 'Yeah.'
Pesky Fact (buried 2/3 of the way down in the article): "...there are no statistics showing that drug and alcohol addiction afflicts technology workers more than the general population..."
This shouldn't be allowed to be called news. I hope the LA Times are shamed by this sensationalist crap.
I mean really. Is that the best you can do, a bullshit pseudo-insult questiony thing?
Bah!
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
Any time you combine high stress levels with high income, you're going to find drug abuse. (Actually, the high income is incidental. It's just that we're only surprised when it's rich people doing the drugs.) Whether it's stimulants or just plain alcohol, people will medicate themselves to deal with the stress. This is not to say that everyone will do this, but at least some people will.
---Joe Merlino gnupg public key ID: 1E91EBAF
Well dude *sniff*, whadda ya expect? I'm a free *sniff*, you know, thinker. I'm like, *sniff* libertarian and all. I say, legalize this shit!
Yeah.
Oh shit *sniff*, segfault!
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
My perception is that clued-in coders, designers, and other smart, curious people have the urge to try everything once, including drugs. And then since drugs often yield a pleasant and unique experience every time, they try it again a few times. But no smart geek is going to self-destruct over substances when there are so many other interesting things around them to keep them occupied and productive.
--
Rob Carlson
When I was little, I wanted to be a theoretical physicist when I grew up!! Now I want to be an experimentalist. And I don't do drugs cause I really don't want anything fucking up my brain, since that's what gets you to be a theoretical physicist. ;-)
Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati
They are probably just confusing substances like Mt. Dew, Jolt, espresso, and vi with controlled substances. I know I've made that mistake before. vi... iv... it all makes sense..............
Jon Katz - the worlds biggest waste of time and bandwith.
we don't do random drug tests anymore. We'd run out of employees in a week.
> As for "hard" drugs, I have a few tech friends
> who smoke marijuana, but that's the extent of
> it. Those same friends are scared of the hard
> stuff, because they know what it'll do to you.
Ya know...assuming its clean drug (ie it wasn't produced in someones bathtub and contains lots of impurities - or wasn't cut with some nasty stuff) - and even somtimes when it isn't. Drugs themselves arn't that harmful.
Its abuse that causes harm. Or rather overuse. You can use heroin, and not become addicted. Same for caffeine, alcohol, coke, anything.
Drugs don't "make people stupid", they don't make you smart either. Even the VERY FEW drugs like alcohol, MDMA, PCP, etc which are known to "kill brain cells" well the brain is redundant as hell. Only the most biased and conflicted of interest studies have ever shown measurable cognitive deficit.
The real trap is when you start using drugs all the time to the exclusion of other activities. Stop going to school. Stop having fun in other ways, start to feel you need the drug.
There are people who can maintain themselves and monitor their usage (much the way a scuba diver monitors the air in his tank, or a sky diver watches the altimeter), there are many who can't.
There are some people (I have known some) who will quit drugs, and then become just as addicted and allow their lives to be just as controlled by other things, like a church, or a woman.
As someone I know said "The high incidence of drug users who are losers is not because drugs make them loser, but rather, if your already a loser, you might as well be a high loser".
As for Heroin, valium and alcohol being a bad mix. Thats what harm reduction is all about. Teaching people enough information to use their drugs safely. Afterall, even among the more intelligent users, MOSt will never research their drugs first, unless the info is handed to them.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I do drugs to make you seem more interesting...
cccaaaaafffffeeeeiiiinnnnnnneeeeeee
...but i'm just sitting here with ma good ole pengins tryin to type faster on ma good ole 486.
Drug is defined as a "non food or drink that effects the way your mind and/or body work".
I eat caffeine. It is part of my daily food cosumption. Therefore, It is not a drug.
Other techies may waste away with the keyboard-mystifying weed or the monitor-flaming shroooms
Get paid for calcualting on your computer.
http://siokaos.org/
Yes, that's from the Breakfast Club - so sue me. :)
Notice the total and absolute lack of facts in the article. Yes there are techies who use drugs, just like there are in every other profession and walk of life. There are two primary types of drug abusers, the wealthy and the poor. The wealthy feel that money makes them invunerable, and that laws don't apply to them, and the poor have nothing to lose, but the pain of day to day life.
Someone is smoking crack, but I don't think it's the programmers. The only fact in the entire article is that the son of the publisher of Upside magazine died of a drug overdose while working on upside.com. Let's take a look at upside.com's META tag:
META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="UpsideToday, Upside magazine, Internet business, ebusiness, b2b, b-to-b, stock quotes, ipo, stock market, technology, high tech, venture capital, vc, e-commerce, funding, investing, ceo, Bill Gates"
Anytime I read something like that I know there's drug use involved. Let's also look at this sentence from the LA times article:
Two women slinked off to the bathroom and found a quiet corner, away from the harsh fluorescent light. As one woman pulled out a compact and checked her lipstick, the other withdrew from her purse a bullet-shaped vial. Sliding the top to one side, she tapped out a small mound of white powder onto her fingertip, lifted it to her nose and inhaled quickly.
Again, someone is on the crack rock, and it ain't the programmers.
What I learned from this article: Yes, journalists still smoke the crack rock. Yes, the e-business craze was driven by MBA's who smoked the crack rock.
Programmers are sticking to mountain dew and routing around failure of all kinds.
Now maybe if we could hide Katz's stash from him for a couple weeks, we could see him WIG OUT!
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
(I agree with the above poster though, good points).
Winners occasionally use drugs as well.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Perhaps has its root in the word "Diaspora" which refers to the scattering of the tribes of Israel, first at an invasion (by Syria? Babylon?) 'round 600 BC. Also sometimes used to refer to subsequent scatterings of the tribe of Judah (also known as Jews, who were pretty much all that were left of the twelve tribes in Israel after the first diaspora).
Or maybe it's a transpsoiton of the wrod disappearing.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
And being an English major doesn't make you an idiot unworthy of lofty programmer admiration and equality. If you're going to attack stereotypes, don't use them to back your arguement. There are a suprising number of liberal arts majors writing efficient and intelligent code.
LetterJ
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
is that a LEGAL drug like alcohol is far more addictive and a health hazzard than Ganja, which can get you in deep do-do with the criminal justice system. After 20+ years of on/off heavy responsible toking (work before pleasue!) the worst I've gotten was a sore throat. You can't OD, it doesn't lead to 'harder' drugs (the usual anti-legalization argument), and is not at all physically addictive, more like 'habit forming' but easy to kick if necessary. Sometimes I think that alcohol is legal because so many physically addicted alcoholics would raise bloody hell and resort to underground criminal enterprises to support their habit if prohibition were reinstate. Ganja was criminalized under suspicious circumstances during the 30's anyway, such as the chemical artificial fibre industry (DuPont et al) wanting to do away with a great source of natural fibre. Just outlaw competition.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Oh my GOD! This poster is actually right! People, please moderate this up!
I just went to this site. Notice the "Select by County" option. There's a Wilkes County, and a Wilson County, but no "Wise County".
sigs are a waste of space
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I take drugs, some of the time. When I'm sick, I need medicine. Isn't that a drug? A good drug? Now quit hogging the cough medicine!
---
dd if=/dev/random of=~/.ssh/authorized_keys bs=1 count=1024
Oh yes, NyQuil in it's original "green death" flavor. Have you ever tasted it? At first your stomach turns into a giant knot, and you go boom, out. "Green death" is a fairly decent description of the mint flavored NyQuil.
At my college they won't let you have alcohol at all on campus regardless of age, but I don't think they ban NyQuil. I wouldn't be suprised if there were some parties where people danced around in their dorm rooms drinking NyQuil straight from the bottle or from shotglasses.
----------
Check out my blackbox styles
end of line
I'll say
How many times have you been looking at old code and thought "What were they smoking when they wrote this?"
This is supposed to be great art. So why does it look like a bunch of decapitated naked people? -- Calvin
What you are saying....
If I were to do heroin, right now, for the first time (and it would be the first time). I could walk away without being addicted.
However, if I do it again, say a year from now, then I will be addicted.
This is what I am getting from what you are saying "Do it twice and your an addicted for life". I find this statment to be fairly shocking, since I my experience with other drugs, goes contrary to this, my (more than average but less than a medical professional) knowledge of pharmacology, and everything I have heard, run contrary to this.
This is not to say that addiction doesn't happen, and that its not real easy to become an addict. its also not to say that heroin isn't VERY addictive...and its not to say that some (poaasinly large) portion of addicts who has kicked it doesn't get cravings now and again.
It is just to say that the "do it a second time and you will never get rid of the cravings" statment is one that, if true, I find fascinating. However, at the same time, I very much doubt its veraity.
_Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Drug use isn't endemic to our geeks. It is endemic to 26-year olds, especially rich ones, and (alas) we often work at the same place.
Personally, I like Bowmore Darkest or the 12yr old, with the occaisonal The MacAllen tossed in.
Checked in more closely on this map of the RTP area. There is a "Wake" county, but if you will notice the larger share of RTP is in Durham county.
Now to check out what the local police department says.
sigs are a waste of space
Damn right man. Can't do shit unless you be #ifdef'ing, #undef'ing and #define'ing stuff.
--
Oh, horseshit. Different drugs have different effects and blanket statements like yours are moronic. Tell someone with attention deficit disorder that Ritalin (a powerful stimulant not unlike methamphetamine) impairs their ability to act responsibly. I wonder how many of those methamphetamine users have undiagnosed ADD and actually function better on the drug.
Aside from that, there are short term and long-term responsibilities. A few drinks or some pot may make me less responsible in the short term, but if I have long-term control over my use (i.e. I rarely have more than 2 drinks in a week, or smoke pot more often than once a month), I'm still exhibiting long-term responsibility.
Dennis Leary is ahead of his time... :)
I know there was a discussion here on /. a while ago, and the two differing arguments went like this:
"I don't need drugs to code well. I am a geek and that lifwstyle values intelligence, etc. something that drugs do not affect positively."
Or, on the other hand...
"I use drugs when I do (or don't code). It helps me experiment with the boundaries of consciousness, and I think that pushing the boundaries is something geeks do well."
Basically, I don't think it's very good to push forward the idea that techies use drugs more than the general population; there's enough misrepresentation as it is. Well, the LA Times covers the issue smartly: "But the combination of excessive wealth, driving ambition and a youthful sense of invulnerability has created fertile ground for some of society's most expensive, and dangerous, highs."
Mind you, this isn't really concerning techies as it is concerning those involved in the recent stock boom that happens to be related to technology. But I can guarantee you that a lot of those people "running rampant" on drugs are marketing execs as well. I think the only reason techies are involved is because they are part of this boom. The same would've happened if we created a New Economy based on turnips or hovercraft. You'd see a lotta botanists/farmers or physicists/engineers high on goofballs.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
My dad's a cardiologist and he's seen the results of regular use. It's a heart that's mostly scar tissue before you are 30. This is also known as death and is generally a non event after you've spent all your money on drugs and driven off all of your friends.
If it's not legal, you don't have any idea of what it is till you use it. Get Real, if you feel the urge to buy something like that you have a problem.
Stop using while you have your health.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I don't know any IT people who use drugs (often). Sometime I hate the media becouse they find some numbers and make a big deal out of it.
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
a) There is NO Wise County in NC, to say nothing of it being the "hub" of Research Triangle Park.
b) I haven't heard ANYTHING about rampant drug use or any kind of busts among tech companies, and all of a sudden it's an epidemic??
A very sensational article... full of flash...... I wouldn't believe it...
How long does it take to get sued by the MPAA?
Buses stop at a bus station
Trains stop at a train station
On my desk there's a workstation....
Oops, that is a wake-up call for me. I never thought of the double-dose I take near deadlines to be drug use. Crazy, but how many people here who have ADD overdose on occasion?
Chhhhaaasswwwelll
(I hate that damn typing stutter when it first kicks in)
Here in the Midwest I've had to pee in a cup for every job I've taken.
As for "hard" drugs, I have a few tech friends who smoke marijuana, but that's the extent of it. Those same friends are scared of the hard stuff, because they know what it'll do to you.
I, personally, don't drink or do drugs, but I used to (and fall back to) smoking.
As for the article itself, it seems like a lot of hype to me. Again, I'm in the "stale, conservative" Midwest, but I've always found it hard to pity someone who is smart enough to make hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, but can't recognize that heroin, valium, and alcohol don't make a good mix.
If you're here to party, great. For Christ's sake, have a little common sense.
My reality check bounced.
Where do you work? Are they hiriing? :)
Sigs are for suckers
I want to know what brand(s) CmdrTaco likes. (JD for me)
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
There's also a wake county, where raleigh and part of research triangle park are indeed located. my guess: the statistics still stand, but the reporter (or editor or copy editor) mistyped the name of the county, which, obviously blows the credibility out of the water.
j
UBU
Look at pro football, or any sport... wallstreet in the 80s... Famous actors... Famous singers... etc...
Drugs are everywhere. Its the type of person, not their hobbies. I'm a computer guy, yet I only drink a beer sometimes while I play games. Nothin serious.
There are some pro football players that are upstanding citizens with perfect records, yet there are some that take crack regularly and beat their wives...
I don't think drugs have anything to do with your occupation or hobbies, but more of your upbringing...
-- "Microsoft can never die! They make the best damn joysticks around!"
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
It was Robin Williams who said "Cocaine is God's way of saying you're making too much money."
Regards, Ralph.
...who are stupid enough to work at startups on promises of optinos. I work very hard, and get paid very well, but I'm a contractor. I have no stress. I don't give a shit about work. I work my 40, then I go home. The stress is their own damn fault. Smart people don't stress about work.
Did anybody say Ex-tas-see ? I would say if your gonna blame Coke in NY and LA, we might as well add our little friend MDMA. I'll admit it, Ive been guilty! I plead the fifth. Jeremy
No, you're definately mistaken. "Losers do Drugs".
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
Cocaine : results in repetative use of comments - no-one listens to 'em, and they never make sense anyway
Ecstacy : Microsoft ports Office to Linux.
Weed : All development works stops. Starts again tomorrow.
Alcohol : Probably the best of 'em all.....oi, Microsoft, who do you think YOU are staring at ?
I gave up ganja in college. One night I was smoking with some friends and I wondered who was peeking over my shoulder. I looked and discovered that I was sitting with my back against the wall. I stopped right there.
I experimented with minor hallucenogens after that but they took hours to wear off.
Right now, I make my living being smart. Anything more recreational than an occasional beer or daily cups of coffee require that I take my brain off line for too long. I don't like feeling stupid.
Cultures have a way of attracting like people. So if you are in part of the drugs culture, you will probably find that most of the people you meet are also part of this culture in some way. If you are part of the geek culture, likewise. Everyone knows someone in most of these different cultures. It just depends on what you talk about with who that brings what subjects up.
dnnrly
I guess the reporter was high when he wrote that piece...
In my experience, there is increasing use of drugs among high tech workers, but virtually none among true hackers. The sort of programmers/sysadmins that don't have a home computer are the ones taking drugs. That's probably a sign of the changing demographics of the IT industry more than anything else. The exception to that would probably be the games industry, where drug taking seems more prevalent than in the rest of IT.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
I work at a bank. The job is not too bad, the pay is ok (considering i'm still in school) but unfortuately, we do have anderson everywhere =-(
PHP is the solution of choice for relaying mysql errors to web users.
Coke has been following money around for years. As someone put it, "Coke is God's way of telling you that you have too much money." Anywhere that you see millionaires pop up quickly, you can bet that they are doing coke. Granted, coke is generally a dumb thing to do (I still won't try it), but it isnt quite as dumb as the US government plays it out to be. You get the same stimulant (dopamine) high from coke without the depressent effects (GABA) of alcohol. I can understand how the big-ego party culture can easily make the switch from alcohol to coke, spiking the stimulant effect and getting rid of hangovers and the like (excluding withdrawal issues).
I think a more interesting and underground issue is the relationship (if existing) between techies and dope. I have seen tons of very intelligent people spend a few days coding and then getting stoned, only to wake up the next morning and code some more. Anyone see the same effect?
If so, that's the only drug I have ever used. I know many, many other geeks that would say the same.
;-)
P.S.: Try Eating a bag of M&M's (one of those big ones) with a 2 liter of Mountain Dew. Legal speed. Great for those all night coding sessions!!!
``We are the people our parents warned us about.''
In the wise words of Yoda,
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
And its not coffee. Banks take this kind of thing very seriously. If you object to the cup, they'll take it out of your arm! Or they'll show you the door.
The drugs of choice in this town are coffee in the morning (and Starbucks does that for a few of us at this office,) and Bass ale (or DosEquis amber, or LaPhroig, or...) in the evenings when we get together and bitch about the day before diasporing home.
We're kept pretty clean living in the financial services industry...
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Because experience shows that even a little bit of drug and alcohol use impairs your ability to act responsibly, so other people have to take that responsibility for you.
----
Lyell E. Haynes
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
Back in, oh, 1994 or so, a couple friends and I would hang around my studio apartment behind my mom's house. We'd smoke large amounts of cheap, low-grade pot and sit around and play on our Linux boxes. UNIX was new to us back then and was still quite fascinating to me. I recall getting especially high one night and "understanding" _how_ and _why_ the OS worked as it did. I had some really killer 3-d visualizations of kernels and filesystems and processes and what not. Unfortunately, when I came down the next morning, I could not recall what I had found so intriguing about my computer. In fact, I was right back where I was the day before--just a wanna be sys-admin learning to build kernels on his Linux box. All that I had to show for my night of stoned hacking was a pretty cool /etc/motd.
I read a Bill Bryson book the other day that reminded me of this whole incident. Mr. Bryson writes of a man who had discovered the secrets of life while high on laughing gas. Unfortunately, as soon as the gas wore off, he would forget everything that he'd discovered. Frustrated by this, he decided to have a pen and paper at his side during the next laughing gas adventure, so that he might record what it is that he discovered. Well, when he came down from his "flight", his peice of paper had but six words on it:
A SMELL OF ETHER PERVADES THROUGHOUT.
DOH...
therefore don't drink milk as a child or you will become a drug addict.
well, it makes as much sense as the blanket statements such as "drugs will always ruin your life".
perhaps those that are fighting the war are already on drugs to be thinking so poorly like this. in which case, they should just lock themselves up in jail and leave the rest of us alone.
--
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Drugs are for the weak.
Depends on your goals, I suppose. Also on your definition of "drug" since I'm quite sure you've probably had a candy bar at some point in your life, might even be drinking a Pepsi at this moment.... Aspirin? Ibuprofen? Prozac?
Also depends on your definition of "weak" since many drugs *ARE* used to treat illness.
But let's assume that when you say that drugs are for the weak, you're really saying that "ILLEGAL DRUGS" are for the weak.
Fine.
I didn't drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes or use any recreational drugs until I was 19 years old. At that point, I was a very frustrated, angry, high-stress, individual. I couldn't interact well with my peers (and I honestly didn't believe any of my peers WERE even close to being my equal.) I had trouble in some social situations (I believed I was better than they were, or that they were weak) and was generally either bored or lonely or both most of my waking hours. But I felt a smug superiority that, unlike my peers, *I* was not weak. (Interesting that anyone would base their estimation of their own strengths & weaknesses based on such a piddling criteria.)
At 19 I tried LSD for the first time. It changed my entire perspective on life, and I have reaped many benefits from the experiences I've had on my "trips."
Call it weakness if it helps you feel better about yourself, but I can genuinely state that "drugs" helped to improve my outlook on life, my respect for other people (not to mention plants & animals) and my ability to function as a productive member of society.
It also chilled me the fuck out.
(FYI - I'm 25 now. I still occasionally use LSD [2-3 times a year], and I smoke marijuana. I don't smoke tobacco or drink alcohol. I never "graduated" into so-called hard drugs like Cocaine & Heroin.)
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi)
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
=(.\')=
Are these man keyword refs or something? What flavor of nix are you on?
Regards, Ralph.
You need an imaginary friend to feel better, and HE's weak?
C'mon, we all know how much crack you guys
smoke up there.
I think you missed the point of the article. It manly illustrated how hard drugs fallows the hard money... Buy the way you don't find pissing in a cup every year as an invasion of privacy? Interesting... "rocking the plastic like a man from the casket"
Drugs are used everywhere. To think that the IT field is somehow too elite to be stricken with this is naive. As the article and another slashdotter pointed out, there is a lot of money and drugs are of course a place to spend that money.
Personally, I liked how they mentioned caffeine as a drug. Interesting thought all by itself.
-Frijoles-
Got Rhinos?
You have a problem if you trust someone like that. You have a problem if you have a recuring need for drugs. On a lark, once in a while, once a month, once a week, once a day, when I feel like it asshole. That's the way it goes. Thinking otherwise is delusional.
I've got three dead friends who thought they were special. None of them had a problem either. My dad has seen scores of people like this. Don't advocate drugs around me, I've heard it all before.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
... that I don't think I could handle drugs. Take my "russian breakfast" for example:
Find a bowl. Fill with vodka. Consume.
So is this problem present anywhere else except California and New York, both centres of high speed living anyway? (The article mentions "Wise County, N.C." - if that's North Carolina, not North California, then there's still no convincing correlation mentioned between the drugs seized, and the high tech aspect).
Not even mentioning the fact that most geeks don't tend to move in circles where class A drug use is a big thing.
As always, with ANY news article EVER, if you know ANYTHING about the topic, you can always spot something wrong.
--Remove SPAM from my address to mail me
Yeah, I guess that's easier than believing your son was stupid and made a decision that had lethal consequences. Shifting blame is an old trick, but still a good one.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
If were gonna catch the wave with coke , we should have at least mentioned my little friend MDMA. Can anyone say Ex-Ta-See? I admit, I've even been guilty once or twice. (And if I never see another glowstick for the rest of my life, I'll be just fine) I Plead the 5th! Jeremy
http://smokedot.org/
Drug use is so much a part of the engineering and technology culture that at least one company has recognized the inevitability of drug use, and has codified policies and procedures for drug use and abuse. It's just a matter of time before this kind of thing is commonplace.
Indeed moderation is the word here...
Funny ppl going bezeerk over weed, when they (usually) more than happy to get pissed beyond recognition....
oh well...
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
The only drug a programmer needs is an after-hours therapeutic dose of popular suspensions of Sacharomices Cerevisia in highly diluted extract of barley in ethanol. Usually also known as beer if it comes from somewhere close to Prague or Butt, horsePiss, etc if the origin is a country that allows beer to be spoiled by putting rice in it. Or by filtering it instead of letting it settle (no wonder Taco drinks wiskey).
Drugs and programming do not mix. A programmer needs a brain that thinks clearly and logically. As well as some therapy to relieve stress from time to time.
So there is a great level of difference between Wall Street and programming. I have yet to see a programmer with a successful career using testosterone creme or hard fuel. The article is complete B.S.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
http://www.robotwisdom.com/
Summary of 1st 190 votes: caffeine (157 use occasionally or daily), pot (56), ecstasy (10), valium (9), powder cocaine (7), lsd (6), speed (3), ghb (1), crack (1), heroin (0)
Nothing like oodles of chocolate. Whenever the pressure's on I head straight for the dispenser.
-- Hob - Java Spectrum Emulator
Braggers, self deluders, and other lusers.
People wondering where all this fucked up drug talk is coming from.
People telling us cautionary tales. Dead friends, failures, and all the other stuff that come with drug use.
This is the first post I've seen today that addresses something other than "People Like Me", indolently typing away on their fancy machines deep inside their high tech cocoons.
That's admirable, but I'm going to dispute your simplistic analysis. The discrepency as well as mobility between the classes is not as great as you might think it is. There are also practical reasons for society to behave the way it does.
Equivalent crimes meet equvalent enforcement. At least in the great state of LA, you are going to jail if you get caught by law enforcement. Fancy lawyers and family ties can help, but there's a limit. Push your luck and you'll pay the price.
Wealtheir people are more likely to be caught, but not by law enforcement. You can expect piss tests etc, unless you are a Kenedy or something. Being caught by a company that has invested time in training you and would rather fix you, is always going to be a different experience than a drug raid. Is this fair? Well, it might be.
Proffesionals constitute less of a threat than those at the bottom of the ladder. Until your habits ruin you, you are less likely to steal things at gunpoint. Sure, you are dangerous behind the wheel of a vehicle, but the last time I looked the police enjoyed pulling over that fance sports car more than they enjoyed pulling over the late 80s model crack mobile. Everyone that uses illegal drugs has the potential to harm their neighbors, but wealthier people are generally weaker and more removed.
Society also has more to loose when one of it's highly trained members fails. Think about it. It's not just that society has lavished resources on them to aquire that training, but they have proved both willing and capable of it. This is one of the reasons companies drug test their employees. A company that cares will test and attempt to rehabilitate members that would be cheaper to replace.
Still, the average proffesional is easy to ruin. Most have debts from their education. If they are lucky, they are married and have kids and a house to support. Even high paid proffesionals show an astounding inability to live within their means. A few months without a paycheck is all it takes to wipe out most. Commit a felony, and you will wash dishes or have to start your own business. No one wants to do business with a felon.
Is all of this fair? No, but it's not as bad as you make it out.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Ed R.Zahurak
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
Attitudes like this:
David Bunnell, the 53-year-old chief executive of Upside Media, which publishes print and online technology industry magazines. "I knew he was drinking a lot and taking uppers to stay awake. I didn't think it was much of a problem. I didn't see it."
are delusional. The propaganda, which was never embraced by the Media whores, ended when George Bush left office and a shameless user entered. This is unforgivable encouragement:
Indeed, weeks after David Bunnell learned that his son had died, the chief executive declined to implement a pre-employment drug-testing policy. "What people do in their own time, in the privacy of their own homes, is not our business," Bunnell said. "We have a policy that we don't want people to be stoned at work, but there is a lot to do here. There's no time to slow down."
How can you get help to someone if you don't know they have a problem? How can you even recognize the problem if you are tollerent?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
This story is drug war propaganda planted to drum up business for drug testing outfits.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Like I stated, the fact that it is allowed actually makes it less interesting for quite a lot of people, myself included.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
what do you mean, they *take them of*
*grin*
(sorry couldn't resist...)
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
Here in Brazil geeks are taking something called "Ice" in order to enhance "gamming and programming skills". No doubt it's another media huckster. Personally, sometimes I like take some grass to interact with my LAN, but something are getting very wrong, because eventually I feel like that guy in "Pi" movie who suffers from horrible migraines. Question: drugs and machines are a good combination? Or do you think it's a step towards some thinkers are calling "technomorphism"?
As for the example of Mr. Bunnell....he was the son of a wealthy man. Children of wealthy people tend to use more drugs. Again, I see no connection. I am fairly young, and have had my hey-day with evil powders, pills, etc. I won't do them now, because they are possibly fatal, and tend to deprive one of their ambition. Stirring coke in your coffee? Oh please. If I stirred coke into my coffee, I would be running around the office trying to nail every secretary and graphics designer. Drugs don't increase productivity, nor do they increase awareness, or assist in concentration.
This is just another thing that the media is blaming us for.
Basic economic theory suggests that as one gives up leisure time (that is, they work more hours), they expect higher wages. This only makes sense -- given that leisure is preferable to labor, one must be compensated to make the tradeoff.
A nasty little side effect is drug use.
Yeah, that's right. The 80s Streeters were highly paid, but didn't have a lot of time to relax or have a good time. They gave up their leisure time for more and more money.
Drug use can enhance the quality of leisure time at the expense, of course, of quality of other time. But the leisure windows were so short that the down-time from drug use normally overlapped with stressful labor hours. And drug side effects, at least in the beginning, could be passed off as stress related uckfups. ("Uckfups," of course, is a highly-technical economic term.)
In short, this is a utilitarian trade-off. The marginal utility of a dollar is low. The marginal utility of leisure time is high. Using the former to enhance the latter is good, but only for a few months at best. After that, you turn into a quivering glob of uckfup.
Money and drugs. Dealers are also attracted to get rich quick schemes. Sure, it's hype. Nothing new here, not even your silly users vrs. abusers delusion.
So what, you're saying that everyone that uses drugs is an abuser? You don't see any difference between someone who has, say, the odd wrap of speed every month or two and someone who takes it every day? Believe me, there's a world of difference.
My dad's a cardiologist and he's seen the results of regular use. It's a heart that's mostly scar tissue before you are 30. This is also known as death and is generally a non event after you've spent all your money on drugs and driven off all of your friends.
Ah, so you do believe that drug use leads to an inevitable death, at age 30 no less. Whilst many drugs can, when taking in large quantities or over a period of time, have dangerous physical side effects, regular use is generally no more dangerous than drinking regularly, and certainly in the case of marijuana, much less so.
If it's not legal, you don't have any idea of what it is till you use it. Get Real, if you feel the urge to buy something like that you have a problem.
Unless you check out any of the dozens of online sources for drug information, such as the Vaults of Erowid. And considering the amount of people who have admitted to doing drugs, it strikes me as odd that you think each and every one of these people has a "problem".
Maybe you didn't mean it quite as it sounded, but your post comes across as unreasonably naive.
A recent study showed that students who graduate from the DARE program are more liklely to use drugs than kids who don't. We just need, as a culture, to face the fact that drugs are interesting, and no amount of "drugs are bad m'kay" is going to change that.
:-).
That is true, but there is a more obvious reason why the DARE program kids are more likely to take drugs. It's because it teaches you how to! Before telling you that drugs are bad, a typical DARE session includes: Where to get drugs. How to tell if drugs are bad. Interesting (and sometimes tempting) descriptions of what these drugs do. What they look like, and what they smell like. They even bring in an "exhibit" with real examples of how they are packaged. They then show stupid movies with idiot actors that almost make you think that taking drugs would make you cool (since you aren't like the damn fools on the video). Or give you examples of famous media and literary figures who were drug "victims" (what would make someone more interested in trying opium for example than telling them Edgar Allen Poe, or Coleridge was highly influenced by these altered states. Pick a rock star?). My tripped out adolescent mind never even realized I would need drugs to achieve these interesting states until I was bombarded with these technical sessions.
That combined with the fact that 95 percent of the people I knew who tried them didn't aquire a serious habit, or ill effects. It's just too interesting an experiment to miss out on
As a 20 year geek member of AA experience suggests that across the general population 1 in 10 people will have problems with addiction regardless of economics. The only deference between well heeled technoids and the rest of us is Single Malt Scotch vs Thuderbird. mitd -- Made in the Dark grey, appears to be my favourite colour.
mitd -- Made in the Dark
"One good thing about spam... You don't gotta answer it"
Here we go again.
This is what I imagine happening: based upon this report, the media will give this issue increased focus, especially in light of recent "backlash" against the Internet. Primetime Live and/or 20/20 will do a "story" on the drug culture and how bad it is, focusing on the minority who are stupid enough to stick needles in their arms, etc. The talking heads will go in to full sanctimonious mode, bemoaning the decline of modern culture and the need for tougher law enforcement. "Experts" will be interviewing talking about trends in drug use, socioeconomic status, and so on.
Absolutely no attention will be paid to the civil liberty aspect of drug use, nor the inability of the Cult of Prohibition to fix the so-called problem. Focus on geeks will subtly shift from their hacking activities to their personal drug use. A new characteristic will be added to the stereotype of "hacker": that of an acid or pot head, dirty and even more criminal.
Fuck all of 'em. I make $78k/yr and smoke pot. I have a family, and a house, and I'm a clean freak. The idiotic and sheeplike masses might buy into you're anti-drug propaganda, but I am an evolved being. I *know* it's all lies.
- Rev.If drugs are part of the "new economy" then I'm seriously missing out. In fact, everyone I know is missing out as well...
Take one heroin addict, and stereotype an entire industry, and this is what you get.
__________
However, LA and NY are given to overdoing things and social-status competition in a big way, so I am not surprised by that info. And yes, the Bay Area is very tolerant of recreational drug use. But I would guess that the percentage of the 'dot com' and white-collar tech employees using using (illegal) drugs at/for work outside of LA/NY is less than 50%. Maybe under 30%. That is still several hundreds of thousands of people, but I think many of them might be on those drugs if they were in any high pressure job (Wall Street, etc.).
The same personality type/social background that was doing coke in the 80s is doing coke/meth in the late 90s/early 00s. It is just that most of the young grads that used to go into finance/Wall Street are now going into tech companies.....
I agree - the examples & statistics quoted by the article relate to drug-abuse due to stressfull working-conditions rather than to any imagined connection between drug-taking and geek-mentality. Sadly though, quite a large number of readers will be quick to take the article as an opportunity to denounce tech-culture & conclude that techies are particularly inclined to take drugs.
If you need your brain not to make money but to pursue a thirst for knowledge drugs are an entirely unsensible choice.
Well, to an extent anyway. I concider myself a geek at heart, and I have tried drugs of various forms. (The soft stuff, ie pot/crystal meth/ecatcy/etc) (my spelling sucks.. but I'm Canadian, what can I say.)
However, I have found that it's not for me. I've been clean for over 3 years, and I'm proud of it. Hell, I don't even smoke.
Just my $0.02
------------
CitizenC
This article is just another piece of propaganda published by idiots who have fallen prey to the lies of the War on Drugs.
Not only do we have fantasy worlds like "Wake County" (see above posts), but we have sensationalist jouralism. Sure, the authorities are seizing more drugs, and more folks are coming in from the dot-com world, but what does that mean? Greater population = more drugs, and booming e-conomy = more people in the dot-com world. Since there is going to be a given number of people in any sampling of society that use drugs (in general), it makes sense that as the number of people in any particular group increases, the number of drug users is going to increase. The article doesn't say anything at all about the actual percentage of Research Triangle workers are drug users. It might be 50%, it might be 0.01%.
The author is taking a hot topic (booming tech), and trying to use it to push his own (stupid-ass anti-drug) views.
I agree that drugs can be dangerous, but there is a difference between a user and an abuser. A well-informed individual can use drugs to his/her benefit (whether it be having a good time, getting more work done, or gaining spiritual insight).
Stop the drug war!
>Drugs only slow you down, and make you stupid.
:) And anyone who's taken speed can tell you that it does anything BUT slow you down.
You sound like the guys from DARE that used to come to my school and endlessly talk about how bad drugs were, without giving any examples of what they will do to you other than "They make you stupid". Weed doesn't make you stupid, just stoned and hungry.
People who have never done any drugs have no right to badmouth them or anyone who takes them. You don't know... You're ignorant, so keep your uniformed opinions to yourself until you can say you've had enough experience to judge for yourself.
Are you experienced?
Nanite
God is real unless declared integer.
That and perhaps, as in my case, life is so exciting without it, I don't even want stuff near me.
--
Chief Frog Inspector
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Personally, I find that with occasional and judicious use of speed/meth, I can maintain a high stress c++ job at a startup, and 2 separate consulting contracts at 85/hour. True, it's unmaintainable over the long haul, but I'm making almost 55k a month pre tax.
Speed and caffeine are the only drugs I'll use as chemical tools, I smoke weed recreationally.
Try reading some Carl Sagan's The Dragons of Eden to see how the use of pharmaceuticals as a tool was one of the critical elements in enabling our evolutionary branch to excel and get to this point. This is why we have receptors _specifically_ in our brain for THC that nothing else can fit - we've co-evolved with herbal drugs. We're drug-using animals - it's the way we are.
I don't disregard the dangers of some drugs - my personal demon was cocaine for a while. However, I don't use it and haven't for 4 years. Just because danger exists down certain paths certainly doesn't preclude the potential value and usefulness of other paths. Just ask every programmer who starts the day with a cup of java.
JDaemon
I'll give you some slack when you say cocaine et al. aren't as highly-addictive as the anti-drug people make them out to be, but if you think ANYONE can casually use Heroin, think again. I suggest you take some biochemistry, pharmacology, and chemical-physiology classes before again making that assertion.
James
There is no Wise County, NC. There are no such records in the local news in the Research Triangle Area of NC.
What editor let this piece of poorly researched crap see ink?
Certified Black Helicopter Pilot *** Unwitting Dupe of One World Gov'ment
Ugh. Another over-hyped "expose" of an "underground" "culture" laced with scare stories. And notice the quotes in the preceeding sentance, because my view is that this article is nothing more than a load of bollocks designed to attract attention. Not that that's unqiue in the modern media.
As someone who regularly uses various chemicals (although not nearly as much as I used to) I can confidently state so what? I very much doubt that drug use is any higher amongst technically orientated people than any other sector where people are earning a decent wage. If drug use is booming then it's because wages are rising, not because of any other reasons. Most of the people I know who do take aren't in the computing industry, no particular field is any more likely to have users amongst it, it's an extremely widespread thing nowadays.
It's too early for formal studies that quantify the problem, but there are ominous signs of its growing proportions.
"Virtually 100% [of stimulant users] begin to use downers--alcohol, Valium or heroin--to sleep," said Dr. Stalcup of the Concord treatment center. He declined to comment specifically about the Bunnell case.
Bollocks. Like most press articles about drugs, they're failing to make the distinction between users and abusers. Almost all people fall into the category of users - they might take a hell of a lot, but it's because they want to, not because they have to. There is a real difference there. I had a big amphetamine problem for a year or so - up four days in a row, sleep for a few hours, repeat. In that year I managed to fuck myself up big time. That was abuse.
Now I use as and when I feel like it, and that's not a problem. I'd imagine it's the same in Silicon Valley, not the den of burnt out addicts that they're trying to portray. Sure there are people that are going to fuck up big time, and it's a tragic loss, but these cases are the minority compared to the huge numbers of people who use regularly without a problem.
As you can probably tell I'm sick of these scare stories taking a complete non-event and trying to turn them into news.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2000/01/13/dr
I wonder how much the LA Times got paid to run this story...
It's only 9:45AM and I've already had a cup of coffee and a Mountain Dew. I suppose every techie is on drugs. It's just the ones I choose are legal.
Employers shouldn't use talk of drug use in the tech sector as an excuse to drug test the hell out of everybody. I know that I had to piss in a cup to get this job, and I was not too happy about it. Urine, hair, saliva, and blood tests are all invasions of privacy. It's none of my company's business if I go home and smoke crack all day. I don't see a problem with axing me for poor performance. If I come into work everyday, shaking and vomiting, I've become a hazard to others and a company wouldn't be doing their job if they didn't cut me out of the picture.
The only person that's accountable for your drug use is you.
aÍÍ©ÍÌÍ£Ì'̽ͩÌÍzÍYÌÍÌY
If you don't like the absurdly draconian drugs laws -- where you go to jail longer for having a joint than for murdering your mother -- then speak up!
(A) Vote for someone *OTHER* than Bush or Gore. Those two tired old aristocratic farts won't change the system. They're too afraid.
(B) Call your local federal representative. Give him hell. Let him know you're against the war against drugs.
(C) Encourage others to do the same.
The USA is rapidly losing all sorts of freedoms because people like you don't get off their sorry duffs and shout out their protest!
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Time to put those dang geeks in their place again.
Heaven forbid that they actually have skills others didn't bother to develop, and are succeeding on their merit!
About 95% of the people posting here say their only drug use is caffeine. How much of the general population can say that?
At my last two dot-coms, the only druggie was the PHB at the first - but the article doesn't differentiate between "tech enterpreneurs" and "tech workers."
Losers do drugs, man.
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
OC, this is all due to the physical disability I have and all the pills are perscribed medications. Without them I'm incapable of moving at all.
---
--
If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
And then, of course, there's those companies (Digital:Convergence, AOL, Sony, just to name a few) which spawn those insanely stupid products that make you blurt out, "What in the hell were they smoking?!?!"
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Ever heard that at your work place? Ever work more than 100 hours in a week? What management expects of some the IT workers was considered slave labor not long ago. People that need or require an escape may find it in drugs, others find it elsewhere (slashdot for example!)
Only when workers and management realize that some projects take time to complete, and more time to do the job correctly will people stop taking uppers to stay awake. (i.e. plan for your staff to sleep atleastonce a week or so)
As far as the richer upper management drug problem, it's simply a repeat of history, the nouveau riche have always had trouble controlling their excesses.
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
God, Counter-Strike... I got a friend of mine playing, he was addicted inside an hour. Me, I'm lucky not to have a machine to run it at home :^)
To keep this on topic, caffiene and Counter-Strike has been working well. Not well enough, mind you (I still can barely keep a ratio>1:1), but it helps.
z
only if I am using the token ring module.....
sorry could not resit......
Yes I can not spell...Wait....for a second there I almost cared.
Seriously though. It seems to me that drug use used to be limited not only in it's frequency of use and by a small group of people. I'm not sure why it's so popular. I've done a few drugs and none of them ever "did it" for me. The after-effects were much worse than any brief gain they gave me.
:)
Heck, I went to a party this weekend and didn't drink or smoke and it was fun as all hell. What got so annoying was the drunk people. Maybe if I had been drunk I wouldn't have noticed, but it seems really stupid that a group of people can't get together and party without drinking/drugging.
Is it me or has our society lost their souls (in general)? It seems that we've all forgotten how to live. The only thing we seem interested in any more is money and getting high (and technology).
(sigh) oh sad day.
If we made drug use mandatory in public schools, we would a few generations from now have a society of people who could deal with drugs. Overdoses are sad, because the victims probably never had access to reliable information about the drugs they were using. Then again, techies shouldn't have any problems finding information...
Ok, just a couple of quick hits, then I really gotta go...
So this guy, who's daddy was a "tech media baron", manages to croak himself with hard drugs, soft women, and too much fuckin' money.
Hey, it's L.A. - It's what goes on. Just look at the picture of Dr. Whatsisface to see the horrid effects drugs can have!
Hand me that bong, wouldya?...
"...they may harpoon us, but they ain't gonna pick us up on no radar screen!"
No one is a good judge of their own mental condition. People with lead poisoning think they are just fine and seek no help.
I've worked in places where people smoked that crap. They mostly did it at home, but it did make a difference at work. It also sucked up time they could have put to useful things and helped keep them down.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I sense waaay too much FUD in this article. Notice how "a girl goes into a corner a pulls out a vial of coke". How do we take this article seriously with all these ANONYMOUS tech workers that use stimulants rampantly. I admit to using several substances, ecstasy, weed, lsd, and a couple others. I personally wouldn't touch herion or cociane with a 20 foot pole, but thats my decision. And its not like I use any of these regularly. Its maybe once every couple months - and not each of those substances every couple months. To me the writer of this article at LAtimes is trying to use a lot of FUD to make people look. Because thats what the LAtimes wants, your eyes on their website or newspaper. I personally would do a lot more research into this before making any sort of decision. Heh, I also bet Intel has some sort of influence on this newspaper too. :)
The Lawnmower Man was based on a real drug, piracetam (aka Nootropil), currently available by prescription in Europe, and through mail order in the States (http://www.nubrain.com). It does indeed make the average joe noticeably smarter, not to mention the average lab rat. It is currently prescribed for conditions including Alzheimer's, epilepsy, and dyslexia. In fact, piracetam is the oldest nootropic, with newer molecules showing even more pronounced effects. One of the more interesting mechanisms of piracetam is that it increases inter-hemispheric communication. Many believe that, by utilizing the left and right brain hemispheres in a more symmetrical fashion, creativity is increased. Also of note is its non-toxicity and sparcity of side effects (bowel irritation is the most pronounced at high dosages). From personal experience, I have found that Piracetam dramatically increases my auditory acuity, although the effect is temporary and usually requires an above average dose. The effect is very similar to LSD, in that many distinct sounds are percieved simultaneously, in vivid detail. Another interesting nootropic is centrophenoxine (lucidril), which acts as a very strong anti-oxidant through the action of DMAE, as well as having neurotropic effects through plant, yes plant, hormones known as auxins. Theoretically, at least, these auxins, once in the neurons, function to increase axonic and dendritic growth. DMAE acts simultaneously in the cell membrane to remove "garbage" from the neuron. What is this garbage? The waste products both of aging and of chemical damage (read drug use). Hope this wasn't too technical, and I've been taking a code vacation for a couple of months, so I don't know how nootropics affect code skills. And of course, Ginkgo is a cheap alternative.
False.
The fact is that the U.S. is by far the biggest consumer of drugs among the world's nations. The rich people who pay premium cash to get drugged in clubs are the reason illegal drug trafficking rings exist, which have terrible effects on society all over America, e.g., Colombia.
Now if Jimmy Crackhead is out on the street robbing and stealing to pay for his crack habit, then the police have a much bigger problem.
There is a word for this situation, which you avoid: privilege. The rich have the privilege of breaking the law with impunity.
Just because you've never seen or heard of a programmer using drugs means that they don't exist right? hahaha You've never seen or heard of them because you don't do drugs. I work in the IT field, I smoke weed. Do I talk about my smoking habit with people who don't smoke? HELL NO! That's why you don't know. I bet most of the people you work with go home and smoke it up, but they aint about to tell you about it. It's quite an exclusive club. Are you experienced? Nanite
God is real unless declared integer.
Yup. Simple traceback. Plain and simple. For each cell, move in the opposite direction from the direction I moved to enter this cell. Record the original movement in reverse order in the answer buffer.
BTW, I sent you a better-documented version just now. I realized that "ixyp" and "oxyp" aren't real nice names for variables, unless you realize I mentally read "input x/y coordinate pointer" and "output x/y coordinate pointer". More directly, in the context of a queue, these are "head" and "tail". :-)
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
poll idea:
'drug of choice'
-f
I like this comment, "...drug treatment experts say tech workers are more susceptible than those in, say, Hollywood or Wall Street because of their work."
I have been in the valley for 5 years now, doing drugs, coding, networking and being a general sys admin. I smoke pot. Most of my friend smoke pot or have tried various forms hash, acid, ecstacy, shrooms and GHB, which is NOT a liquid form of cocaine as the article states, but more like a mostly harmless chemical that has no short or long term affects other than a potential date rape. A few have tried crank or cocaine, but none that I know of have ever tried other forms of meth or heroin.
Doing drugs occationally, as most programmers or techies to, is one thing. But printing an article saying 40%+ are intense crack addicts is extremely rude and unjustified, LA TIMES.
Techies do drugs, its a fact of life. Most can get by with caffeine, and a few are drug free. But all in all most are occational and responsible drug users. We do drugs at raves, in the youth/stoner/skater crowds we hang around, etc. But we very rarely need to do any drugs to make it through our day at work. If we work late it is because we believe that our companies IPO will make those few stock options we are in the process of vesting worth a few pennies.
In case LA TIMES can't get a clue, our job isn't a typical work and slave long hours sort of job. It requires a deep knowledge of computer systems, networks, and code and the ability to think creatively to solve problems, which most of the country is incapable of solving, including probably 50% of those with MBAs. Programming is something that you just can't do on most of the drugs mentioned in this article.
"The body count is just starting." This is shocking how our media system is trying to spread panic to the ignorant masses that don't know how difficult it is to write code or do most high paying tech jobs. The jobs that would afford you the cocaine with the current rent prices in the bay area are only tech, marketting or management positions. Which do you think plays around with the harder drugs? You'd need to make at least $70k to afford the amount of drugs required to sustain happiness if you rely on drugs for such things. I used to smoke over a half ounce a month. That's from $250 to $300 a month for my pot addiction, which is cheap compared with cocaine.
I just don't get this. "There's always been an anarchist technophile drug-use thing that seems to go together," Maybe excessive drug usage helps create the anarchist technophile present within each of us? But who am I? Just another clueless techie who runs your internet... what do I know 'bout these things?
What's next? Are they gonna start bitching 'bout my zoophile sexual nature and how wrong it is, too? I can't wait for the theories of how long hard working days make us all insane anarchistic sexual freaks.
Hmmm... Looks like a system error here - person with a medically-treatable problem (addiction to a substance) - is thrown in Criminal University to "deal" with it, instead of receiving greatly needed treatment.
Fix the system. Stop punishing people with medical problems.
There ARE "techies" that use drugs on a regular basis. Don't deny this fact. "Golly gee, I just drink my Mountain Dew and coffee and that's all the drugs I need. Sha-zam!" Hardcore "techies" right here. I know there are people that won't ever use drugs, but it's the same for every fucking culture. You have sXe-for-life people, casual drug users, and the doped up junkies who will probably die in a gutter like the filth that they are.
"The strength of one's spine is all in the eye."
Hey, don't blame it on the DSP!
I think the same thing when I read what you code in C!
I mean, really, who else does stuff like this?
L[j] = "ZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA9876543210"[i];
Well, ok, I would, now that I know it's legal...
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
It makes you look stupid.
I'll take their word for it that techie drug use is a serious and growing problem, but in the case of Aaron Bunnell's death, I wonder whether it can be blamed on the pressures of the industry, or a poor upbringing.
As Bunnell's father states, ``I knew he was drinking a lot and taking uppers to stay awake. I didn't think it was much of a problem. I didn't see it.'' Your son was taking alcohol and uppers and you didn't see a problem? Sounds like he could be a user himself.
Next, check out this choice paragraph: Indeed, weeks after David Bunnell learned that his son had died, the chief executive declined to implement a pre-employment drug-testing policy. ``What people do in their own time, in the privacy of their own homes, is not our business,'' Bunnell said. ``We have a policy that we don't want people to be stoned at work, but there is a lot to do here. There's no time to slow down.'' (ie. Do whatever it takes to keep your edge or you're out) Sounds like an enabler to me.
Anyway, blame issues aside, as far as I'm concerned, anyone earning an income from wetware is a fool to take any kind of controlled substance, especially something like cocaine or heroine.
excuse me? I guess your experience turned out to be quite embarrasing for you, but to the point of needing a keeper?
Besides acting responsible is a very subjective phrase. I have an 80 year-old aunt who thinks just about everyone acts irresponsible.
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
that no one here seems the least bit concerned about the overarching social impact of drug abuse. Do we really want to live in a world where companies expect you to do drugs to be more productive? What is the long term health cost of widespread chemical abuse? When you're in your 50's (and having fried a significant number of brain cells by then), do you really want to be displaced by younger, chemically enhanced programmers? Or, even worse, displaced by your non-drug abusing peers?
But the thing these stories fail to focus is how, despite these segments of the upper classes being the most intense consumers, the fact that the authorities don't clamp down on them strongly. Let's face it, if a high paid dot-commie in a posh club in SoMa snorts coke, it's perceived as normal and fully acceptable. The police won't go into the club and raid it, because they won't want to upset the owners and the powerful partygoers. If they do get caught, well, they can afford good lawyers to get them out; they can afford private drug clinics where they get the best detox and other services, and don't have to mingle with the poorer users. Their employers don't test them for drugs-- they pull out the "privacy arguments". However, somebody black guy smoking rocks in Oakland is a different business. There you get the full brunt not only of the law, but of society's rejection.
I am appalled nobody here has picked up on the class angle on this story. It's understandable that the big media won't, because of their ideological commitments, but /. readers? Surely if anybody should notice, it's us.
You know you only like whiskey because of Pokey.
No ID means No Whiskey
Yupp, 55% of all coders are addicted to coke...
The other 45% prefer Mountain Dew...
On a side note:
The "Boston Church of Christ" is also known as the "International Church of Christ" and it not a regular church but actually a cult.
My brother got sucked in and I was just barely able to get him out. Like any other cult, they look for new members who are emotionally and mentally vulnerable, and ex-drug users are a prime target.
My brother and his friend who were involved were druggies.
Like any other cult, it's based on the personality and ego of a central figure, and they use fear and peer pressure mixed with group acceptance to totally dominate and control your life.
It is one nasty mind F*** that they can do to you.
You might want to do some research on cults and groups that practice mind control to help your friend out.
I am a firm supporter of the bottoms-up programming method! *GULP*
It's not difficult.
Yeah, and "rehab is for quitters" !!
Mike Roberto
- GAIM: MicroBerto
Berto
I grew my own kind bud. Smoked it myself.
I grew my own mushrooms. Tripped once or twice a month.
Then I got raided. They charged me with manufacturing schedule 1 (never sold or produced any volume, just personal amounts... no use to pay dough when you know how to grow). They confiscated all my electronics and computers (sure do miss the old NeXT cube) not to mention my bong collection and all my piece pipes.
Now I'm on probation for 5 years. Can't do drugs in case the state pops a piss test on me. I purposely chose an employer that did not do drug testing, if they hadn't been so cool with situation I would be working in a city making twice my salary now.
My stress level is much higher during the business day now than when I was growing and using my personal stash after work. I've had to resort to working out everyday to relieve stress.
At least I'm in better physical shape, if not mental.
Total effect on my career = 3 lost working days while sitting in jail waiting for judge to set bond... which my employer paid to get me back into the office as quickly as possible. When the Systems Administrator of an ISP is completely unreachable things can get rough.
Now everyone in the office just makes the occasional bong joke knowing I can't smoke.
Mushrooms get ordered on every lunch pizza.
Drug laws are just plain annoying, and are overcrowding our prisons with the people that can't afford the good lawyers like the one my boss got for me. I feel sorry for them, and very thankful for what I have.
I can't believe something so true got modded down! Just cause AC is probably a bitter Canadian, doesn't mean you should pick on him..
i don't like the drugs, the drugs like me.
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
"I believe my son was a victim of the dot-com boom," said David Bunnell
While I feel for Mr. Bunnell and his loss, I can't help but feel sorry for him blaming "the dot com boom". I for a time I worked with emotionally disturbed children most of whom came from broken families and often a substance abuse problem in one way or another was involved. In that time I learned one thing. People whom take drugs have only themselves to blame. In the end (other than a tragedy like this) people must take responsibility for their actions if they're going to get off of it.
It's always nice to blame the big bad rich guys of wall street, but that's just an excuse. While many people might not like the decadence of wall street they're not to blame, and tagging them with any responsibility of someone's drug habit only diminishes people's personal responsibility for themselves.
personally i've never been a big druggie, i've had my share but never heavily and not recently.
but i have lots of *nix admin friends who regularly smoke week and snort cocaine.
so, no, this article is pretty on-track. (and these are not newbie idjits as you so politely describe, these are my geek friends from childhood..)
...dave
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
Got this from an earlier post on up. Winners really do use drugs. 71% of them actually...
I'm better now, but the real kicker is that this could have been prevented. It's easy to make a phone call to get a cab rather than risk driving home. You probably won't be hurt if you do hit someone, but if you do, it'll do terrible, terrible things to them. Please, think before you drink.
Thanks,
Haaz: Co-founder, LinuxPPC Inc., making Linux for PowerPC since 1996.
-- haaz.
... whose bio says
"sure, I bombed out of highschool"
Sure makes light of your comment eh?
I still have to watch it, very often- I won't drink coffee 'cause I go nuts with it until you can eat it with a fork :) but I'll drink tea and cola or Mountain Dew and work straight through the night until 8 in the morning, or 10, or noon- a 14-hour continuous stretch is about my limit and that's without coke or amphetamines. It causes problems for me sometimes *shrug* whatever, I'm just not _built_ for 9-to-5 hours. The important thing to me is that I can still be me without smoking pot or using other drugs or getting drunk- and I'm not a bit surprised to see that there are a lot of techs out there burning themselves up in addictions. Hell, who else would work that hard but an addict? It's up to the people involved if they want to die or change their whole approach to life (at least as far as what substances fuel 'em). Changing them into nonaddict boring reliable slow-type people is not an option ;)
First of all, let me start off by saying that the tone of the article is speculative and doesn't seem to properly back up any of its conclusions. It reads like a Behind the Music for the dot-com industry. Second of all, I don't consider most of the people this article seems to be talking about to be "techies". They're business people and almost indestinguishable from the yuppies they're being compared to. The true techies, i.e. coders, sys admins, etc. do not go to these coctail parties with the peolpe we despised in high school. He stay home and hack, and game, and chill with each other. Second of all, I've noticed a rise in coke and meth use in young people in general. I hang out at a coffee house that turns into a(illegal) after-hours at 2am, and you should see the shit these people cram into their bodies. Why, because they're stupid and desperate to do anything to distract themselves from their day-to-day lives. The people I hang with, hackers and gamers and geeks (oh my!) do massive amounts of caffeine to get the project done, and we smoke some weed to relax while we're watching Iron Chef afterward. In conclusion, slashdotters, this article isn't about us.
Seriously, techies using drugs. What the hell for? Doesn't help you type any faster. Won't even increase your frag count in Quake.
seems like half of the slashdot posters are hooked on "Stupid Pills" or some sort of substance that cuts their IQ in half
And then they keep on pointing at how the amount of drugs seized has increased; this is shaky evidence that drug use is even on the rise, let alone on the rise in a specific part of the work force.
The body count is just starting? I PLAY QUAKE ALL FUCKING DAY YOU MORONS! Lay off the crack...
He quit drugs, went on to an abusive relationship with a woman (she was the abuser...if I hadn't seen what she was doing with my own eyes I never would have believed it). Then he joined a strict church...and adopted the same "Need" to have it control his life.
Was there something specific about his church you found to be controlling? Or do you just assume anyone active in a church is being brain-washed somehow?
The rest of your post I found very insightful.
-jimbo
"Hold me Bob!" "I would if I could man!" -Bob and Larry from VeggieTales
Living in San Francisco, this has become my mantra. Yes, I'm a "tech worker" in a "dot com" -- but I'm not the one clogging the city with SUVs, buying a $2000/month loft that used to be an artist enclave, and snorting coke in fancy parties with the other Armani-suited MBAs.
What this article (all of them, in fact) doesn't get is that it's not that coke and money have gained a toehold in some new demographic -- it's the *same* demographic that made Wall Street in the 80's: money-grubbing, fancy-suited slicksters who grease palms for a living, then go party all night to forget that the world would be just as well off without them.
Why these people are considered to represent this whole industry is beyond me.
And winners of the Olympics...
//m
I heard (through the hempstalk?)that the fellow who co-founded Lotus Corporation (and wrote the first kick-ass versions in assembler) was one of the original LSD gang (you know, leary and those *losers*).
;-)
My point? Just that "drugs are for losers" is nothing more than another sociopolitcalcorporate cheer, and about as meaningful and truthful as "god hates fags", in other words, it is based on fear, uncertainty and doubt; intending to control, corral, and stifle active minds.
I truly do not think any thing labelled a "drug" is bad in-of-itself, it is how, where, when and by whom they are used. Take it from someone who in his youth drew his own rather shaky experiental line at heroine, and today leads a semi productive life, has committed no proprty or personal crimes, spent no time in jail, and would plot the overthrow of the western world if he could get up off his stoned butt for long enough to formulate a plan.
As for programming and beer, I have found that like most of things, only recreational computing makes sense when "under the influence" or spirits or the kind.
Oh, here's a lookup on the a word in the subject line for those of you NOT on drugs
Going on means going far
Going on means going far
Going far means returning
Funny you should say that. In an email I just sent you (before I read your post), I highlighted a similar gem of my own doing:
do { *--s = "DLRU"[m]; mp -= dm[m]; } while ((m = *mp) != 'S');
Cool, eh?
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
Have you got a problem or not? Were you so special that you could just use that crap you bought or did you crash and burn? How often do you sensibly go out? Sure, you're in control.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Mine doesn't.
Thank you.
Be nice to your friends. If it weren't for them, you'd be a complete stranger.
... which self-respecting hacker would work in a bank? Boring job, lousy pay, and Anderson Consultants all over the place...
You go and have your wimpy caffiene. I'll take the hard stuff please.
Only morons go around and make false generalizations about people like 'Only deadheads and jokes use that stuff'. And I am a loser (in yoru dictionary, that would read "I am a drug user") so I'm allowed to go around and make generalizations of my own.
You, my friend, are a moron. I bet if you were to get honest answers from your friends, neighbors, and co-workers, you would find staggaringly higher amounts of drug use than you would have ever imagined.
And since when are you the difinitive word on 'hackers'? You've surveryed them all and found that only the 'good' ones use drugs? How how do you determine their 'goodness'? That's entirely subjective, as is the determineation you have made about people and their drug use. Dick.
Pffft is exactly right. Go stick your head back in your ass.
Long signatures suck.
The majority of people seem to think that there is no inbetween when it comes to drugs, either you're a straight-edged proper member of society or else you're a no-good junkie. I'm not suggesting that everyone go out and do drugs, but what's the big deal?
It seems that no-one really wants to talk about drugs from a neutral point of view. Most people either side with the government "Reefer Madness and War on Drugs" point of view or else they are uninformed pro-drugs zealots using only the facts they like to hear.
Don't bring the same old song and dance to the table, we know the creed of the war on drugs so well now that most people who would consider using drugs realize that it is only a propanganda assault and that it doesn't really explain WHY people shouldn't use drugs.
No one ever says they want to be a junkie when they grow up - and I don't think anyone ever says they want to be a theoretical physicist either.
UBU
Really, women are funny about putting up with tech guys who are married to their jobs...
so they turn to drugs... go figure.
Oh...and video games. Lots and lots of video games. (must...play...counterstike...soon...)
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
CHILL! It's all good.
Edith Keeler Must Die
This article is yet another example of old news getting posted to Slashdot.
Isn't the headline obvious based on how articles on Slashdot get moderated?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
hah hah hahahahahahaahahahaahahahahaha hahahahahahah aha hahahaha hah ah ah. ah ahaah. hah heh. ahem.
-- Adam
Kitty Dukakis did, when she fell off the wagon... Hehehhe. :)
I've never seen anyone do better with it! All it's ever done for my friends is slow them down.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
heh heh heh. (what filter stops me from writting this, it must be lame)
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
my God, we would breed like rabbits then!!!!
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
It's true... stay off the caffiene, ritalin, prozak, and alcohol. They're highly addictive, mind altering drugs with some pretty nasty side effects. Only losers need that crap.
Actually, ritalin, prozac and alcohol aren't normally addictive. For the above, and other drugs, you probably shouldn't take them unless you've got a medical reason.
In my past life (before I stopped doing drugs)I did drugs EVERY DAY and drank at least 5 pints of beer EVERY DAY and smoked 1+1/2 packs of cigs EVERY DAY. I was going nowhere and didn't really care. Then I met a nice girl, she gave me a reason to get out of bead before noon clean my. Then I got an office job and I was good at it. Then I realized I liked computers. So I started helping the System Admin. Then they gave me his job. I have continued at that pace for 3 years now. Self-taught in computes and off drugs(I still like to have a few pints every now and then.)
My point is the people who are doingin this industry drugs are the Sales and Marketing departments. Why do you think they can't use thire $3K laptop computers very well as well as not understanding the concept of making sure the product works before selling it!
but what if people who do more drugs have more sex? Drug users are "freer" people. They problem have more babies, too. Thus their share of the gene pool could be expanding.
cpeterso
C'mon.. fess up.. you guys aren't Karma Whores.. You're Karma Junkies. Karma is nothing more than Digital Crack and from lookin' at all of the replies, you guys are just jonesin' for a fix.
I think the whole point is, is that dot com employers don't want less drug use. They could care less, that's why that guy's father refused to test for drugs even after his son died of an overdose. They're looking for young fresh minds to use and abuse. And anything that will help these minds to get more work done is fair game to them. The whole lifestyle is built around a manic race to earn as much money as possible, risk and consequences be damned. The only way to keep from living this lifestyle, is to refuse it, to not allow employers to dangle that carrot in front of you. Don't depend on them to look out for you, because they won't. It's not worth it.
American press wouldn't lie to the public to make it seam like techie are drug crazied over paid burn outs dieing left and right from over doses. They wouldn't do that to inforce anit-drug ideas and laws to the 280 millions people living in America, discriditng any good uses of drugs. They wouldn't lie about the war-on-drug being a waste of time and money, and really a war on people.
The press wouldn't lie to us to befit the million of supporters of the anit-drug business. Naw, they wouldn't lie to us. What would they gain? They have no reason to lie.... Why would they lie to us? They have no reason to lie.... They have no reason lie... not to us...
Oh god!! tell me it's not true!!
MarNuke
Ummm... about your sig... I put it in MSVC, went to compile and i get this:
Compiling...
Cpp1.cpp
c:\windows\desktop\hi\cpp1.cpp(1) : error C2440: 'initializing' : cannot convert from 'char [15]' to 'unsigned char *'
Types pointed to are unrelated; conversion requires reinterpret_cast, C-style cast or function-style cast
c:\windows\desktop\hi\cpp1.cpp(1) : error C2065: 'putchar' : undeclared identifier
c:\windows\desktop\hi\cpp1.cpp(1) : warning C4508: 'main' : function should return a value; 'void' return type assumed
Error executing cl.exe.
Cpp1.exe - 2 error(s), 1 warning(s)
So, what is it _supposed_ to do?
Mark Duell
Since the LA times like to spread FUD maybe they should merge with ZD. Did the La times watch Refer madness and decide to pick on Northern California Dot coms?
I don't want you as an employee if you buy. Let's face it, you just have no idea what you are really buying till you use it. Despite your protests, I have no way to know if you are going to be brain dead, paranoid or psychotic the next time you come to work.
If you are growing your own, I've got no idea when you are going to be hauled off to jail. At least you did not hurt anyone at my firm, but now I have to go find another employee.
These are practical concerns, and good reasons to refuse to hire people who use drugs.
Now let's look at periodic on the job testing. The same arguments above apply, but now the company has invested some time in you. It may be worth the companies time and money to make you stop rather than fire you. Your performance will degrade, it's only a mater of time. Everyone will be better off if you can be "fixed".
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The US gub'mint doesn't care if you use drugs, they just care if you sell drugs. See, they want to sell you your drugs! The CIA doesn't like competition from your local drug dealers.
cpeterso
I was told computing was a society of drug professionals who dabbled in computers! It wasn't just tons of coffee and Al Gore that built the Internet :)
That's because it's a really abusive C program. What gave you the impression that it's C++?
--
Change is inevitable.
Change is inevitable.
Progress is not.
Drugs can be dangerous when used to excess or in dangerous combinations. Cars, and even Vitamin C are also dangerous when *AB*used. I have in the past used meth to improve my work output. I never degenerated into a raving junkie, nor did my use become apparent to anyone else (I took extremely small doses.) Good for that after lunch slump. I don't do this anymore because heehee, I work for myself, and on my own terms. Course I'm not getting rich, but that's O.K.
The point is, don't demonize *drugs*. Instead realize that some people do not know how to be personally responsible. With food, t.v., sex, religion, or even drugs.....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~