Posted on 10/10/2005 6:38:56 AM PDT by radar101
The FBI, famous for its straight-laced crime-fighting image, is considering whether to relax its hiring rules on how often applicants could have used marijuana or other illegal drugs earlier in life.
Some senior FBI managers have been deeply frustrated they couldn't hire applicants who acknowledged occasional marijuana use in college, but in some cases perform top-secret work at other government agencies, such as the CIA or State Department.
FBI Director Robert Mueller will make the final decision. "We can't say when or if this is going to happen, but we are exploring the possibility," spokesman Stephen Kodak said
The change would ease limits about how often, and how many years ago, applicants for jobs such as intelligence analysts, linguists, computer specialists, accountants and others had used illegal drugs.
The rules, however, would not be relaxed for FBI special agents, the fabled "G-men" who conduct most criminal and terrorism investigations. Also, the plan would continue to ban ongoing drug use.
The nation's former anti-drug czar said he understands the FBI's dilemma.
"The integrity of the FBI is a known national treasure that must be protected," said retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who used to head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. "But there should be no hard-and-fast rule that suggests you can't ever have used drugs. As long as it's clear that's behind you and you're overwhelmingly likely to remain drug-free, you should be eligible."
Rules prohibit the FBI from hiring anyone who used marijuana within the past three years or more than 15 times ever. They also ban anyone who used other illegal drugs, such as cocaine or heroin, within the past 10 years or more than five times.
"That 16th time is a killer," McCaffrey said.
The FBI proposal would judge applicants based on their "whole person" rather than limiting drug-related experiences to an arbitrary number. It would consider the circumstances of a person's previous drug use, such as their age, and the likelihood of future usage. The relaxed standard is in use at most other U.S. intelligence agencies.
Entry-level intelligence analysts earn between $36,000 and $53,000, depending on qualifications and where they are assigned to work. Entry-level FBI special agents earn $42,548.
The FBI proposal contrasts with the agency's starched image and its drug-fighting history. A generation of video game players can remember seeing the FBI seal and slogan, "Winners don't use drugs," attributed to former FBI Director William Sessions.
Private companies have wrestled with the same problem. Employers complain that they can't afford to turn away applicants because of marijuana use that ended years earlier, said Robert Drusendahl, owner of the Pre-Check Co. in Cleveland, which performs background employment checks for private companies.
"The point is, they can't fill those spots," Drusendahl said. "This is a microcosm of what's happening outside in the rest of the world. Do we dilute our standards?" He said the FBI should have a low tolerance for illegal behavior by applicants. "If they used marijuana, that's illegal. It's pretty cut and dried."
A recently retired FBI polygraph examiner, Harold L. Byford of El Paso, Texas, was quoted in a federal lawsuit in February 2002 arguing "if someone has smoked marijuana 15 times, he's done it 50 times. . . . If I was running the show there would be no one in the FBI that ever used illegal drugs!"
While marijuana use is hardly universal, it remains the most commonly used illegal drug in the United States, with about half of teenagers trying the drug before they graduate high school.
"What people did when they were 18 or 21, I think that is pretty irrelevant," said Richard Clarke, a former top White House counterterrorism adviser. "We have to recognize there are a couple of generations who regarded marijuana use, while it's technically illegal, as nothing more serious than jaywalking."
An agency's attitude toward drug use has been blamed for unexpected consequences. The CIA forced one of its officers, Edward Lee Howard, to resign in May 1983 after he failed a polygraph test and disclosed his drug use in Colombia during 1975 when he was a Peace Corps volunteer. Howard defected to the Soviet Union in 1985 after he was accused of espionage activities that spy hunters believe were driven by resentment over his forced resignation.
"I had been totally honest about each and every misdeed in my past, including my drug use in South America and my occasional abuse of alcohol," Howard wrote in his 1995 memoirs. He died in July 2002 at his home outside Moscow.
Some other federal agencies also have tough marijuana policies. The Drug Enforcement Administration will not hire applicants who used illegal drugs as agents, although it makes exceptions for admitting "limited youthful and experimental use of marijuana." The DEA, however, permits no prior use of harder drugs.
"Recreational marijuana use is a fact of life nowadays," said Mark Zaid, a Washington lawyer who has represented people rejected for FBI jobs over drugs. "It doesn't stop Supreme Court justices from getting on the bench and doesn't stop presidents from getting elected, so why should it stop someone from getting hired by the FBI?"
Because it casts doubt on their credibility.
I wonder if the FBI hires people with past drunk driving arrests. It's really no different.
It sure should be. Why is it the FBI's business what consenting adults do in their off-time? It's no-one's business but the people involved.
Not to mention their friends and acquaintances.
There's a lot of things that the Bible prohibits, for example, that I do not do because I am a Christian who values that interest. But I'd be very angry if the government started intruding on my privacy to the extent necessary to enforce those rules.
If the government is going to prohibit homosexuals from working as FBI agents, should they prohibit divorced men? Men who have had affairs? Men who had had sex before they were married? All of these I consider immoral - but outside the bounds of the government's business.
I think this is bad policy and I am pretty much a Drug Warrior. I think a 7 to 10 year limit should be imposed and the 15th time removed. I know plenty of people who got their act together later in life.
Character doesn't matter in a police state. Just ask Bill Clinton if you aren't willing to take my word for it.
Actually what's really no different is someone who had a beer when they were younger than 21.
The guy named White was chosen as our platoon leader in Marine boot camp, and was clearly the best qualified. But he told his recruiter that he never did marijuana, and then admitted to it upon entrance questioning. The DIs fought to keep him in, but he got dumped the last week before graduation. The Platoon gathered him almost a grand from our meager funds for a growing away.
My intel school didn’t start for 3 months, so my first assignment was to help control MCRD’s transient platoon, full of washouts. We pressed them pretty hard. White was in there for weeks too. He was so freak’n out of place.
Past anti-drug use are about the most ineffective standards I can imagine. They don't effectively measure a man’s character of abilities.
You know, I'm glad I'm not the only one out there. I'm also a Christian, and considered by most who know me to be pretty straight-laced.
Having said that, there's quite a gulf between my beliefs as a Christian and what I think the government should enforce.
Okay. That last line was screwed up, but I was stoned at the time.
Child molesters need protection too. Why limit any and all criminal backgrounds from FBI. It's "diversity" that matters (read druggie liberal alert!)
It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
- Mark Twain
The Platoon gathered him almost a grand from our meager funds for a growing away.
"a growing away." ??
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