The Ganja Man Can Become a G-Man

Jacob Sullum | August 3, 2007

Back in October 2005, I noted that the FBI was thinking about loosening its policy regarding past drug use by applicants for jobs with the bureau. A policy adopted in the early 1990s barred anyone who admitted smoking marijuana in the previous three years or more than 15 times and anyone who admitted using other illegal drugs in the previous 10 years or more than five times. USA Today reports that the FBI quietly adopted a new, more tolerant approach in January, focusing on current drug use.

Since most Americans in their 20s or 30s have used illegal drugs, some flexibility in this area is a practical necessity. USA Today says the old policy made it harder to find qualified employees and "created problems for applicants who couldn't remember how many times they had smoked pot when asked in polygraph examinations." Unlike the change contemplated in 2005, the new policy apparently applies to gun-toting agents as well as other employees. "Increasingly," says Office of National Drug Control Policy spokesman Tom Riley, "the goal for the screening of security clearance applicants is whether you are a current drug user, rather than whether you used in the past. It's not whether you have smoked pot four times or 16 times 20 years ago. It's about whether you smoked last week and lied about it."

[via the Drug War Chronicle] 

Comments

|8.3.07 @ 2:38PM|#

Drugs are so bad and users need to be put in jai,yet many agents have used.How many other crimes do you get a pass on?Robbery,theft,sexual assult?I mean if drugs are as bad as they say it would be like hiring a former rapist.

Jennifer|8.3.07 @ 2:45PM|#

I agree with Michael Pack. So long as drugs remain illegal, even a one-time use of drugs should be grounds for disallowing someone from working in law enforcement. And if that means we can't find enough law-abiding people to work in such positions, then maybe we need to rethink laws that make otherwise-qualified people unable to hold presumably important jobs.

|8.3.07 @ 2:48PM|#

hey, we're talking about the FBI. Robbery, theft, and sexual assault are just part of the job.

|8.3.07 @ 2:49PM|#

It is perfectly okay to allow drug users to join the FBI. Afterall, the FBI is part of the government, and if the government needs to hire drug users to so that there are enough government officials to protect us, then that's the way is should be.

Episiarch|8.3.07 @ 2:53PM|#

Well, think about it: it's desperately important to get these terrible drugs off the streets, so past (and even current) users have an insight into drug use, and may be more useful in their jobs. It all makes sense!

RSDavis|8.3.07 @ 3:23PM|#

Woo-hoo! I finally scooped reason!! I blogged this story yesterday. I'm so proud. ;)

- R

Anonymous Bastert|8.3.07 @ 3:28PM|#

Ummm... the children?

This one's tough.

Okay. Here we go: We need more and better qualified feds to protect us, and who better than those who have been succumbed to temptation from the Devil himself (aka drugs) and have turned their back on him! These once wayward sons shall be the most trustworthy guardians of THE CHILDREN!

Booyah.

|8.3.07 @ 3:29PM|#

I think we should go farther.Any one who has ever drank alchol and driven a car should be excluded.After a few years there won't be a FBI.

|8.3.07 @ 3:44PM|#

Expect the FBI to begin massive raids on the Doritos factory in the near future.

|8.3.07 @ 4:05PM|#

Does this mean 40% of all FBI agents are psychotic as this weeks earlier researchers claim must be the case?

And why do we only hook up potential FBI agents to polygraph tests? We need to get the politicians in that polygraph seat if we put anyone.

But really is there anything better then a 'former," user to really want to kick the current users in the nuts for their illegal actions. That would be status quo for government SOP, say one thing do another and then when the same is done by others condemn them to hell as the lowest forms of life. You know just like they were when they used but that was 10 years ago and only 3 times. Who the fuck only smoked weed 3 times and actually counted? Please. The old users can't do much worse then the supposedly clean agents of old if the present situation is any indicator. The non users having worked there for years seem totally off their rockers as it is, perhaps using should be a prerequisite not a detriment to being hired.


Dee

Russ 2000|8.3.07 @ 4:13PM|#

I agree with MikeP.

I assume Michael Peck and MikeP are the same.

|8.3.07 @ 4:22PM|#

And why do we only hook up potential FBI agents to polygraph tests? We need to get the politicians in that polygraph seat if we put anyone.

Thats the best idea I've heard in a long time.

|8.3.07 @ 4:38PM|#

Russ 2000,I only post under this name.

Scooby|8.3.07 @ 4:53PM|#

We need to get the politicians in that polygraph seat if we put anyone.

I'm seeing a future filled with burned-out polygraphs.

|8.3.07 @ 5:07PM|#

Stacey Keatch in UP in Smoke....." the best way to catch a doper... is when you youself become a smoker" . Keep an eye out for chameleon tongued FBI agents, no, you can't have a bite of my hotdog.

|8.3.07 @ 5:35PM|#

Just one more thig.According to Tom Riley,'it's not whether you commited a crime 4 or 16 times in the last 20 years' it's are you willing to hold others to a different standard and ruin their lives.

Bill Cooke|8.3.07 @ 5:38PM|#

Well, I've never touched the stuff. I can't see why the FBI can't find agents who have also never smoked it. If they can't then perhaps they should rethink the drug war. If that doesn't tell them that they can't win nothing will. Of course, the FBI is a criminal organization anyway so having more criminals in it should not be a big deal.

edna|8.3.07 @ 11:15PM|#

doesn't it bother anyone that our government uses polygraphy, a technique only slightly more reliable than astrology or graphology?

|8.4.07 @ 2:50AM|#

"doesn't it bother anyone that our government uses polygraphy, a technique only slightly more reliable than astrology or graphology?"

[In a Steven Colbert deadpan]... Well, Edna, it IS slightly more reliable than astrology.

edna|8.4.07 @ 8:23AM|#

well, that's a relief.

could we save some money by using phrenology instead?

|8.4.07 @ 10:18AM|#

I'll take this as an excuse to post a link

|8.4.07 @ 10:22AM|#

Let's see. Bill Cliton admits in an interview that he once tried pot ("but didn't inhale"). Nine UK cabinet members admit that they once smoked hemp. It's time to pull out of the WoD.

|8.4.07 @ 1:00PM|#

I had a friend that was a local sheriff.He'd come over once in awhile and swim,drink 3 to 5 beers and drive home.He never saw the contradiction that he aressted people for the same thing at road blocks.