Pubdate: Tue, 30 Jun 2015
Source: Honolulu Star-Advertiser (HI)
Copyright: 2015 Star Advertiser
Contact: 
http://www.staradvertiser.com/info/Star-Advertiser_Letter_to_the_Editor.html
Website: http://www.staradvertiser.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5154
Authors: Matthew Rosenberg and Mark Mazzetti, New York Times

MARIJUANA AND U.S. INTELLIGENCE DON'T GO TOGETHER, SAY THE FBI AND CIA

WASHINGTON - For all the aspiring and current spies, diplomats and 
FBI agents living in states that have liberalized marijuana laws, the 
federal government has a stern warning: Put down the bong, throw out 
the vaporizer and lose the rolling papers.

It may now be legal in Colorado, Washington state and elsewhere to 
possess and smoke marijuana, but federal laws outlawing its use - and 
rules that make it a fireable offense for government workers - have 
remained rigid. As a result, recruiters for federal agencies are 
arriving on university campuses in those states with the sobering 
message that marijuana use will not be tolerated.

So members of a new generation are getting an early lesson in what 
their predecessors have done for as long as there has been espionage, 
diplomacy and bureaucracy. They are lying and, when necessary, 
stalling to avoid failing a drug test.

It usually takes about two weeks for evidence of marijuana use to 
disappear from urine, a urine sample being the method by which drug 
use ordinarily is tested.

"Delaying something is part of what a good diplomat is supposed to 
know how to do," said John, a young U.S. diplomat who lives in 
Washington, D.C., where marijuana use became legal this year. "If you 
can't put off a test for two weeks, I mean, come on." He spoke on the 
condition that only his first name be used in an effort to avoid 
losing his job.

Government officials who have gotten high are hardly rare, and the 
long list of elected officials who have admitted to past use of 
marijuana - and other substances - starts with President Barack 
Obama, who wrote that he had used both marijuana and cocaine. But 
there is a widening chasm between what voters are willing to tolerate 
and what federal agencies allow, leaving men and women who are trying 
to build careers in government with a choice between honesty and 
their ambitions.

The CIA requires that its job candidates be "generally" drug-free for 
at least a year, and asks potential hires about past use, according 
to Lyssa Asbill, an agency spokeswoman. But how much past use 
constitutes too much is not clear.

The FBI has even tougher standards. The bureau insists that recruits 
refrain from marijuana use for at least three years before hire.

Yet even the director of the FBI, James B. Comey, acknowledged last 
year that his agency's rule could hurt recruitment, although no 
federal agency has yet offered specific numbers or other evidence 
that it is having trouble filling jobs.

"I have to hire a great workforce to compete with those 
cybercriminals, and some of those kids want to smoke weed on the way 
to the interview," he said at a conference on white-collar crime in May 2014.

Some members of Congress were not amused by Comey's suggestion that 
the FBI needed to ease its drug standards, and he soon made it clear 
that the bureau had no plans to radically revamp its policies on marijuana use.

Spy agencies have seen "no discernible impact" on recruitment as a 
result of the changes in state marijuana laws, said Joel Melstad, a 
spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom