U.S. Defense Secretary Wants Pentagon to Employ Cannabis Users
According to the U.S. Secretary of Defense, being a former cannabis user is not grounds for passing up a potential high-level military defense employee.
At an event last month put on by TechCrunch (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3YQZSpD51Q), entitled Disrupt SF, Ash Carter, the current U.S. Secretary of Defense, admitted that the pentagon would not be opposed to hiring individuals who have experimented with cannabis in the past. When asked about whether he would hire an engineer who had used cannabis occasionally in the past, he replied, “Yes, we can be flexible in that regard, and we need to.”
“In that and many other ways, we need to, while protecting ourselves and doing the appropriate things to make sure that it’s safe to entrust information with people, we need to understand?—?and we do?—?the way people [and] lives have changed, not hold against them things that they’ve done when they were younger,” he explained during the interview.
This is not surprising, given the fact that James Comey, FBI Director, admitted in 2014 that a new policy needs to be considered when it comes to cannabis use rather than a zero-tolerance policy. Similarly, a recent report from the Justice Department stated that “the recruitment and retention of cyber personnel is an ongoing challenge for the FBI,” since it “loses a significant number of people who may be interested because applicants ‘must not have used marijuana in the past three years.’”
While this is certainly good news and very forward-thinking for a government agency, the fact remains that these new policies still clearly only approve of those who have a small amount of cannabis use in their distant path. Those who choose to use cannabis recreationally in place of alcohol or who need it medically still won’t be accepted. Regardless, this is a big step forward for cannabis users who want to work in defense.
