That’s true of most people who don’t smoke up too.
Bill Hicks had a good bit about splitting your record collection into two groups: records made by people who did drugs and those who didn’t. Then decide which albums you wanted to keep. It doesn’t mean that everyone should do drugs, but it’s a good indicator that either drugs can be used to enhance creativity, or at least that highly creative people don’t seem to lose their edge on drugs.
I have also known a number of very bright, productive, motivated, successful scientists, engineers, and developers who consume cannabis.
Some have spoken highly of brainstorming while stoned, fleshing out the details and narrowing their scope and intentions as they sober up, while others say that it helps them concentrate by slowing down their racing thoughts.
And while I've known people who've used it to waste their lives away, that's true of so many things.
Anecdotally, a friend of mine and myself use marijuana down the former route. Fleshing out ideas, exploring thought. In fact, functional programming "clicked" for me when I was high. It was still there in the morning!
But that doesn't mean every thought is going to be valuable, or even good. If treated that way, I think it can be a good tool. I am thankfully not prone to addiction or reliance.
It reminds me of Carl Sagan's thoughts [0] and especially this quote:
> If I find in the morning a message from myself the night before informing me that there is a world around us which we barely sense, or that we can become one with the universe, or even that certain politicians are desperately frightened men, I may tend to disbelieve; but when I’m high I know about this disbelief. And so I have a tape in which I exhort myself to take such remarks seriously. I say ‘Listen closely, you sonofabitch of the morning! This stuff is real!’
I find it more fascinating to explore thought while on cannabis and that is what I primarily use it for. Instead of saying "dude you're so high" to a far out thought, I try to explore it as far as it will go. Quite enjoyable.
Same here. I know people who bum out with it much like many other vices. I also know many analytical and intellectual minds that enjoy it's effect for more open-ending brainstorming (architecting code for a solution, etc), then they sleep on it, wake up sober, and flesh-out the work from there. It's the balance that makes this work so well.
Trouble is, all these people just smoke up and watch TV instead of doing anything creative