&gt; And despite what the article connotes, most people in tech are not using illegal drugs frequently or ever.<p>I don&#x27;t think the article suggests <i>most</i> tech workers are doing this, but I think you&#x27;d be surprised at the amount that are. Bear in mind that in an office environment, it&#x27;s hard to tell who is a user and who isn&#x27;t. I&#x27;m a heroin addict, but I don&#x27;t have &#x27;Junkie&#x27; tattooed on my forehead, instead I work at a startup, commit code to GitHub, and go to conferences just like everyone else. I would also agree that it&#x27;s a problem, and for one other reason that I think the article missed.<p>If you&#x27;re unemployed or working a low-end job, and want to quit an addiction, nobody cares if you disappear for a month to detox at a friends house out of town, or something like that. With a tech job, perhaps in a startup or other stressful environment, the responsibilities and pressures that come with it mean you <i>can&#x27;t</i> just stop. You need the drugs to stay functional and keep working, there are people and businesses relying on your output. For example, if I were just to stop taking heroin now, then withdrawl means I couldn&#x27;t work for quite some time, maybe a month or two, and there&#x27;s no way I can just drop all my projects like that. So if you stop taking drugs you&#x27;ll lose your job, or worse - word might get around that you ended up in rehab, and no more working in the industry...<p>So it&#x27;s a little more complicated than they make out.