SALON

Tuesday, Mar 5, 2013 1:13 PM UTC

Silicon Valley is full of stoners

The tech hub is also a hub of getting high

By

Topics: technology, Silicon Valley, marijuana, Pot, legalization, AlterNet, , ,

Silicon Valley is full of stoners (Credit: Shutterstock.com)

Another major marijuana stereotype just got blown totally out of the water — this time the idea that consuming cannabis is for unemployed slacker types. In fact, pot is wildly popular in one of America’s economic centers, Silicon Valley. According to a new report in Bloomberg’s Businessweek, the “physical toll” of computer coding has made Silicon Valley workers key consumers in the medical marijuana industry.

AlterNetIn San Jose, which Businessweek dubs the “Bay Area capital of medical marijuana,” 106 medicinal marijuana dispensaries span the city’s 177 square miles, more than adequately serving its 967,000 residents. One of those dispensaries, Pallative Health Center, told Businessweek that tech workers make up an estimated 40 percent of clients.

“We’re seeing people from some semiconductors, lots of engineers, lots of programmers,” Ernie Arreola, 38, the assistant manager, told Businessweek, which noted, “That makes sense, because the shop is an easy shot from some of the area’s biggest employers—Cisco Systems, Google, Adobe Systems, Apple, EBay—and a short drive from dozens more. Also, people in Silicon Valley do like their pot.”

One medical marijuana executive told Businessweek that marijuana-infused chocolate toffee is a favorite among tech workers, who he says represents about 15 percent of customers. “It does not give the high or intoxicated feeling that you would typically get from a lot of medical cannabis,” Doug Chloupek, CEO of MedMar Healing Center, told Businessweek. “Those who are coding for 15 hours a day with cramping hands, that is the product that allows them to have mental clarity and still get pain relief.”

But while Silicon Valley employees are getting stoned in a culture that embraces marijuana use, Businessweek notes policies forbidding drug use and possession at Cisco and Adobe, though neither company screens new employees for drug use. Maybe that’s because, as Silicon Valley CEO Mark Johnson told Businessweek, “Pot is an extremely functional drug. Coders can code on it, writers can write on it.”

Still, as Galen Moore notes at the Boston Business Journal, weed isn’t the only drug popular in Silicon Valley:

The comments section on the tech news site Hacker News offer a glimpse into prescription drugs that are popular as work aids in Silicon Valley’s high-tech culture, including so-called “smart drugs” Provigil (Modafinil) and Nuvigil, and pharmaceutical stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin.

Some commenters also challenge Businessweek’s assertion that marijuana culture is “raging” in Silicon Valley. It may be news to Businessweek, but the reality has always been that people from all ends of the social spectrum use drugs, pot especially. Not everybody, however, is arrested for it.

More Kristen Gwynne.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 11 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Oklahoma senator: Tornado aid “totally different” from Sandy aid
3076 points3077 points | 2037 comments
vote
Anyone Regret Slashing National Weather Service Budget Now?: With GOP-backed cuts to forecasting agency, experts warn future storms will go undetected and more lives lost
959 points960 points | 498 comments
vote
Oklahoma senator wants to offset tornado aid with other cuts
149 points150 points | 54 comments
vote
Horrifying new trend: Posting rapes to Facebook " In Chicago this weekend, prosecutors announced three teenaged boys will tried as adults for aggravated criminal sexual assault after allegedly raping a 12-year-old girl — and posting a video of the attack on Facebook."
29 points30 points | 15 comments
vote
New campaign compares gun control to anti-LGBT discrimination
24 points25 points | 10 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations