[The D’Alliance] Add This One to Souder’s FBI File
The FBI is thinking about changing its restrictions on former drug use by job applicants so that fewer people are disqualified from joining the agency. FBI officials have said they’re frustrated at having to turn down the best person for a particular job (even someone who has worked in the past for the CIA!) because they didn’t meet the criterion of having used marijuana 15 or fewer times in the past.
This is an interesting development in and of itself, but on top of that it was the subject of an editorial and counterpoint in today’s USA Today. The paper applauds the idea of doing away with the ban, noting the statistic that half of Americans have used pot at least once. I was really tickled by the line, “Minor recreational drug use by the young is simply a fact of life.”
And then there’s the opposing view, authored by everyone’s favorite prohibitionist, Mark Souder. His main argument is that he finds it hard to believe the FBI is lacking for qualified applicants. Zing! Take that, Drug Legalization Conspiracy!
He tosses out numbers of FBI job applicants but says nothing about the fact that the FBI seems to be having trouble filling specialized positions such as intelligence analyst or linguist. Who cares if 100,000 people are applying for jobs as Russian translators if none of the eligible ones speak Russian?
Oh, and he also refers to past marijuana users as “repeat drug abusers.”
When you look at his piece side-by-side with the relatively nuanced one from USA Today, Souder mainly comes off just looking cranky that anyone might consider common sense and effectiveness over dogma.
Posted by Megan Farrington.
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