The FBI is seriously considering relaxing its arcane restrictions on hiring people who’ve used drugs recently or more than a few times.

The new 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 already is in use at most other U.S. intelligence agencies.

Like the rest of the drug war, the proposed change is not above questioning as a hypocritical paradox. (If drug use isn’t so bad, how come you keep arresting people for it, U.S. government?) But the government is learning that it’s economically unfeasible not to hire recent drug users — there are too many of us, and many of us are pretty good workers.

For more on that perspective, we go to actor (and drug-war victim) Tommy Chong.

“I don’t think you could find anybody who hasn’t tried marijuana, and I take a lot of credit for that,” said Tommy Chong, the comedian whose films with Cheech Marin provided over-the-top portrayals of marijuana culture during the 1980s. “They’re going to have to change their policy.”

It would be nice if the governmet scrapped all its drug policies, but I suppose this is a a start. More here from CNN.

Update: I just noticed that Pete at Drug WarRant had this yesterday.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 10th, 2005 at 8:45 am by Baylen Linnekin and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.