Highdeas are More creative but Less Feasible New Study Suggests

ideas high on weed

The age-old question, “Does cannabis make you more creative” apparently has been answered according to Psych News Daily. Well, it was reported by Psych News Daily – the actual study was published in the Journal of Business Venturing, entitled “Head in the clouds? Cannabis users' creativity in new venture ideation depends on their entrepreneurial passion and experience [source]”

According to the study, they found that entrepreneurs who used cannabis had “higher creative ideas that were less feasible”.

Now – how did they come up with this outlandish claim? Well, you have to tweak some very specific parameters to replicate this study’s results.

Dynamics of the Study

First let’s take a look at how the research team went about coming up with the results. A total of 254 participants where 120 were self-reported cannabis users and the remaining were non-users. They were tasked with generating ideas for new virtual reality tech, and answered a questionnaire about their experience as an entrepreneur.

“Specifically,” the study says, “the higher originality and lower feasibility of cannabis users’ ideas surfaced for entrepreneurs with high, but not low, entrepreneurial passion for inventing, and for those with low, but not high, entrepreneurial experience.” Said Benjamin Warnick, the head author of the study.

But what does this all mean? Let’s break it down.

Higher Originality for entrepreneurs with high passion for inventing but low experience as an entrepreneur – were less feasible. In other words, if you smoke weed – and like to invent shit, but don’t have the experience of actually inventing shit – you’ll probably come up with shit that isn’t as “doable” as you’d imagine.

For example; “The Giganto Space Rope” – or a rope that extends into space and wraps around the moon is original as original gets – but the practical application of thus said idea is null.

This is essentially what the researchers were trying to figure out except – their methods didn’t prove anything really.

Why the study doesn’t really work…

The fact that there has to be subjective qualifiers to produce the result is already a red flag. Of course someone with no experience in building a product that sells, will come up with more outlandish ideas than someone who knows what it takes to develop a product.

This rings true for someone who smokes weed or someone who doesn’t. Now if this means that compared to the “non-smoking group”, the “more inexperienced entrepreneur had an increase in ideas”, then it would indicate that cannabis indeed does help with creativity.

The problem with this creativity is that it may not be grounded in reality.

How to use this data practically?

Let’s ignore for a moment the qualifying conditions and take a look at whether you can use a more agile mind effectively.

Firstly, if it comes to brainstorming – creatively speaking it would be good to smoke a fatty, and riff on some ideas with your partners. Once the riffing is completed, sleep on it for a few days and revisit them while sober.

The study author suggests to also have non-smoking entrepreneurs look at the feasibility of the idea as well. This is solid advice.

Nonetheless – simply waiting a few days after your “stoned brainstorming session”, you can begin to look at the feasibility yourself. I’d say you’d have to wait at least a week before editing the ideas and it would probably be in your best interest to not smoke weed for at least 24-hours prior to “sober reading” your “stoned brainstorming”.

The irritability of not smoking weed will make you as anal as a nonsmoker – giving you the ability to be more critical of your work.

Additionally – this would also indicate that cannabis does indeed help for creative activities like writing music, painting, dance, etc.

Knowing that cannabis does have a positive impact on stimulating creativity – potentially acting similar to how LSD interacts with neuro-lock allowing the individual to operate “outside of their anatomical limitations”. I wrote a piece on that here.

Nonetheless, if the data does indicate that cannabis helps “make one a bit more creative yet slightly unrealistic”, it can be used as an aid for business development.

The Business Relationship with Cannabis

Sometimes, you need to be sharp – smoking cannabis may hinder you in that respect. However, there are some strains that can make you “sharp”. Yet, sometimes the best thing is to “not smoke weed”. Especially if you have something very important going on.

However – the study does show us that there is a place for cannabis in business.

To help generate new ideas

To help relax

To help stay healthy

To help unwind

Cannabis can be an aid or a detriment to those who wield it. You can use cannabis to come up with new ideas, but as with any venture – if it stays in the idea phase, it’s worthless.