[ivansavz]

I'm wondering to what extend the positive productivity that people report when working high are due to the momentary mental relief from psychological pain (anxiety, depression, negative self thoughts) and the general mood enhancement.

Such positive effects could outweigh the decline in cognitive performance observed in this paper. For example, let's say that being high has a -0.2 effect on cognitive performance, but a +0.5 effect on alleviating psychological pain, then the user is still +0.3 overall.

Too bad treating psychological issues through substance use is not a winning strategy in the long term (due to habituation), but maybe temporary and occasional substance use can be a helpful stepping stone toward finding more sustainable alternative strategies, although the dangers of addiction are a big risk too, so it could go either way.