vaporizer

The social aspects of vaporizers probably depends on who you hang with. Everyone who I regularly get high with strictly uses a vaporizer when we are hanging out (or occasionally shares edibles). Not a lot of smoking going on. Of course, I am in my mid-30's and have friends of the same age or older, and most of these friends have stable jobs, such that spending $250+ on a vaporizer is a no-brainer.

The verb "vape" is what is commonly used with the people I know. It's not show-offy if vaporizing is commonplace. This is more recent, and I just said "use a vaporizer" in the past if I wanted to be specific.

Personally, I own both a non-portable vaporizer that can fill bags (Herbelaire) and a portable vaporizer (Pax). Both are used frequently and are easy to share with friends. I still smoke, but that is only maybe 10% of the time. I've been vaping for the last 17 years, starting with a home-made vaporizer made using a soldering iron.

As for alcohol: I enjoy it, but I rarely have the desire to drink it for it's intoxicating effects lately. I really enjoy the taste of beer (and wine is good too), but it's becoming rare that I actually want to drink one. What changed is that I started getting back in shape and exercising frequently (well, moderately). Due to being a new parent, I often get my exercise around 9pm-10pm as that is the only time that works for me. That means many nights, alcohol is just not an option. Also, I have been fairly consistent in eliminating unhealthy foods (I can count the number of times I have a sugary dessert in a month on one hand), and I've started to see beer as unnecessary calories. The fact that I lost enough weight to stop snoring is just affirmation that I should stick with this. I'll save drinking beer for social situations, rather than something I have with dinner.

So you hate my girlfriend, who has multiple sclerosis and the only thing that makes her feel better when she's having a flare-up is marijuana? Often times she doesn't want to be high, but does it anyway because it's the only thing that works.

We'll be looking to move to California if this passes. Good to know there will be people leaving to make room for us...

Well, if I get too high, I find it difficult, but if I'm just a little high, I find it beneficial in that it helps me focus and sometimes helps creativity. I'm currently employed and don't get high on the job, but I code on my side projects high pretty often. But I don't generally get high with the intentions of coding. Usually it's just that I happen to be high and just want to code and make progress on my projects. Often times it's not until I've sobered up a little (but not completely) before I start coding, though.

I didn't used to do this when I was younger (I'm 32 now). In college I found that while I could do homework high, it usually resulted in me correcting a bunch of errors the next day, so I reserved pot (and alcohol) for when I was finished with my work. But these days I'm so compelled to work on side projects that having used pot (and sometimes alcohol) earlier in the evening just doesn't stop me from putting in a few hours before bed time.

As a side note: I gave up regular usage of caffeine after I got out of college. I found I no longer needed it once I was able to get 7-8 hours of sleep every night instead of 4. But I very occasionally have caffeine and yes, as others have said, pot + caffiene is a good combo.

Vaporizers are my preferred way of consuming. Ever since I got a good quality vaporizer, I don't smoke anymore. It's a lot cleaner than smoking (though not totally tar-free, but close enough), and it saves you money. In my non-scientific estimation, I think I use about 1/4 of what I would if I was smoking. It also seems like a cleaner high, often times more energetic, and I come down from the high smoother.

I have the HerbalAIRE Vaporizer H2.1 (http://www.gotvape.com/store/herbalaire.vaporizer.php). You can set the temperature for (which it regulates), and it fills up a bag. It's not a Volcano, but its good enough (costed $250 vs the ~$600 Volcano). I built my own from a soldering iron before, but it just doesn't work as well as it took 10-15 minutes before it was ready, whereas this one takes about 3-5 minutes. Buying a good quality vaporizer is well worth the money vs making your own, unless you are skilled enough to make your own quality vaporizer (with proper temperature control).

Also, cooking it in oil/butter is also a healthier alternative (the healthiest alternative probably). I do that as well, but that's more for when I will be out in public where I can't use my vaporizer (really great for concerts for example). I generally cook the oil or butter into baked goods (brownies or chocolate chip cookies), or sometimes take spoonfuls of the oil straight.

The only problem with both of these methods is that you are committing to using a certain amount and its harder to regulate how high you get. With eating it, you don't feel it for an hour or so, so its sometimes hard to judge how much you need unless you've already tried a batch. With vaporizers, whatever you put into the vaporizer gets used up, and you can either waste it by not inhaling it all, or inhale it all which could lead to getting higher than you wanted to. With smoking its easier to regulate as you can just put it out or not toke again; or take your time between tokes.

As for actually using when coding, I do occasionally work on my personal projects after getting high; but this is more because I'm obsessed with coding and working on these projects more than purposefully getting high with the intentions of sitting down and coding.

I don't know if it improves my abilities, really, but it does make doing mundane tasks more tolerable. It allows me to focus and get lost in the problem. And also I sometimes do brainstorming and come up with ideas which I quickly note down before I forget. It makes my imagination start to think about the problems I am working on, which leads to actually having the motivation to try out what I'm imagining, hence why I often end up coding after I get high (though generally after I've come down a bit). The idea that pot de-motivates you is a myth in my opinion.

And yes, I created this account just to post in thread, and have a separate HN account for non-incriminating conversations :)