i know most police departments seem to have a tolerance for marijuana use.   

however, during my immature and cofused days of college when i fell in with the wrong crowd i experimented with cocaine, shrooms, and ecstacy.   

is that just way to much for a police department to overlook, or does it just depend on other circumstances the department takes into consideration about your character and the fact you can honestly answer on a poly that you do not want to ever do these things again.

does this mean Ann Margaret will not be coming for the holidays?

Oh I am with you I know for a fact that any use with "hard" drugs is an automatic dq from our process and I believe it is a good policy.

Don't worry Tres X you have never posted anything that I disagree with........I was just being a smart ass.

we just had one who did great on the test (written), outstanding education (working on a masters in forensics) and kicked ass in the Agility (almost broke the academy record.  However when it came time for the background questionaire......lets see has done x, shrooms snorted a few lines and blew a couple bong hits....all within the last year......But swears that is in the past and this person is ready to be a cop now......No Black and White for you try BOP!  

George, 

While you do have a point I have to disagree with you on this one.  The fact of the matter is that as a law enforcement officer a person is held to a higher standard of conduct than a civilian.  Therefore, the use of so-called "harder" drugs and the candidates immediate disqualification for their use is a necessity.  

The CIA would not knowingly hire someone who has betrayed the public trust or sold US gov't secrets to work for them.  Just as the IRS would not hire a tax cheat to work as an investigator, nor would the FBI hire an ex-trrorist to be a special agent.   (of course contract employees and informants are excluded as we all know you sometimes need a crook to catch one)  A child care facility would in no way hire a prior sexual offender.  Therefore, a Police Agency should be no different and not hire someone who has shown a pattern of irresponsible drug use to enforce the state and federal drug laws.   

While it is true that this automatic disqualifier causes people to lie or omit their drug use, this is where an agency relies on the background investigation and possible confessions brought about by the polygraph.  Your line of reasoning in this matter could just as easily be paralleled back to the sexual offender and the child care center.  Everyone knows that a sexual crime will DQ you from working with children.  Should the applications and psychological then not ask this question because it would force people to lie to get the job?  In LE an applicant may indeed get by and slip through the cracks by lying about his drug use, but now he/she will find themselves trying to hide this the rest of their lives.  Here is a scenario for you.  Cop pulls someone over, finds drugs in the car and arrests them.  This very same person remembers having sold drugs to the officer or been with the officer when he was doing drugs.  The arrestee now seeks to alert the detective, prosecutor or jailer that the cop who busted him is crooked and reveals details about what he knows.  IA investigates and the cop now has to continue to hide his past indiscretion and continue to lie.  First time it happens we can let it go as a cheap attempt by the criminal to get back at the officer, but more than once and this officer is officially under the IA microscope fro the rest of his career.  (All of which have been usually quite short).

Yes, an applicant may get by, but in the end it eventually comes back to bite them in the ass.  However it save a lot of time and money to be able to DQ someone from their willful admissions to past drug use.  If they in turn begin to lie about it, then that is where it helps departments to work together and reveal the admissions the applicant made to the other agencies for which he/she is applying.

Most departments do actually conduct testing prior to hire, however, very few continue to conduct tests on officers post hire.  There are several reasons for this.  1) cost of continued testing  2) Unions have managed to make it so that we can only test if we have reasonable suspicion to test an officer  3)  Many officers are in fact exposed to these chemicals as a part of their job and this can lead to a good officer being mistakenly identified as a drug user.

The system isn't perfect, but we cannot allow people who have knowingly broken the law and used SEVERAL kinds of drugs become LE officers.  People are allowed their mistakes here and there, but use of more than just one drug seems to be like irresponsible behavior and not someone I want out there in uniform.