FBI eases rules on past drug use for new agents

Here's some interesting news for those of you with less-than-stellar drug histories who still have a dream of working in counter-intel: The FBI still wants you drug-using geeks. From a recent story at the Washington Post:

The buttoned-down FBI is loosening up: Under a little-noticed new hiring policy introduced this year, job applicants with a history of drug use will no longer be disqualified from employment throughout the bureau.

Old guidelines barred FBI employment to anyone who had used marijuana more than 15 times in their lives or who had tried other illegal narcotics more than five times.

But those strict numbers no longer apply. Applicants for jobs such as analysts, programmers or special agents must still swear that they have not used any illegal substances recently -- three years for marijuana and 10 years for other drugs -- but they are no longer ruled out of consideration because of more frequent drug use in the past.

It's interesting that the FBI would admit that they are "out of step" with the reality of our times and concede like this, but the problem is they are having trouble finding people to work for them, and their drug policies are still even tighter than those of the CIA (can you believe that?). However, the FBI's new "whole person" approach to screening applicants promises to make some distinction between "recreational drug users" and "criminals", as odd as that might sound.