As a newcomer to this site all I can say is that I am shocked by some of the testimonials published here.  Stories of polyglots who, by the number of their advanced degrees, seem far overqualified for any sort of government work and the salary attached to it, being refused employment based on the results of some tactless interrogation, even when they seem to have no closeted skeletons to speak of, make it clear why our nation’s intelligence is in such a dismal state.  In my opinion intelligence agencies should’ve been begging those people to work for them.

However, the discussion I wish to engender by this post is why the intelligence community continues to insist on hiring boy scouts.  Now, I understand why a history of drug use could be considered a security risk, but I can’t help but feel they’re overestimating it.  I recently graduated from college and, although I stopped smoking pot regularly, I smoked consistently throughout my student career and insubstantially experimented with other drugs. I don’t know how many of you have smoked pot, but, I really didn’t have any trouble ending my use whatsoever.  The same applies to cocaine or any other substance I have tried.  As a cigarette smoker and a social drinker, I imagine I would find it far harder to end my use of those substances than anything narcotic I’ve had experience with, and I’ve been around the block.

I really don’t see how even consistent or heavy past drug use qualifies as a significant security risk.  If I were in charge, I would consider anybody with even a little debt (apart from student loans), even a spendthrift or a married man, or someone with family living abroad a far greater security risk.  They all have much more to gain and lose than a single applicant who’s had his share of run-ins with the American underworld.  I’ve been mulling this over the past day or so and I cannot think of a better pedestrian analog to being a CIA field agent than being a regular marijuana user.  Again, I don’t know how many of you have experience with this, but when you smoke a lot of pot, you have to do quite a bit of work to acquire it—work that’s not unsimilar to recruiting someone to spy.  You have to make people, dealers, trust you and you have to know who to trust.  You also have to make sure transactions take place in a clandestine manner so that you protect yourself and make sure that trust is not broken.  You get used to doing things in secret, speaking in code, being paranoid, reading people and adjusting your persona so that others find it trusting and affable.  In short, you develop affinities that most others don’t have or need.   

I think, in order for intelligence agencies to function properly and prevent wars that cost billions and tens of thousands in military and civilian lives, they need to play it dirty sometimes.  I cannot see how people who have a past and have been around the block (of course with the proper language and poli sci background) wouldn’t be considered an asset—rather than the ‘squares’ they continue to hire who don’t seem to be able to get the job done.   

I’d like to know what you all think on this matter, you strike me as a very intelligent group.  Perhaps my ideas on what a CIA agent actually does.  My ideas of what’s important when it comes to tradecraft and what an agent actually does are based upon the memoirs of Richard Holm.

To clarify, I didn't mean to imply that I had any business working in intelligence. It seems to me that polygraph tests and background checks are used so that government agencies can hire those with the purest of backgrounds.  I really can't see how innocence and naivete are necessary good things, and how smoking pot in the past is this huge security risk, when I can think of a hundred traits that are more threatening.  But, I guess I just sound like a stoner.

Firstly, this post was not based on a Harry Palmer movie.  As I said, I looked back to the memoirs of Holm who made a case on the importance of tradecraft, paranoia (he bought a piano for his kids while living abroad, suspected it contained a bug and had it dismantled to no avail) and a bond of trust with assets.  I realize my argument is tenuous.  But, from what I've read, when they do background checks for clearances they look first for drug history and then for financial troubles, and I think this is the wrong order.  Please explain to me how one's smoking pot in college is a security risk—I’m interested and I guess I don’t really understand.   

Oh, and if you’d like to see who does get hired by intel agencies… 

https://antipolygraph.org/cgi-bin/forums/YaBB.pl?num=1184870704/0#0

Naturally, I was interested in someone who clearly had the proper qualifications and history...and google turns up her old blog.

http://www.xanga.com/SLeePyPoOj90

Atleast we can feel safe knowing our intel people like pink and narrating their lives on the internet.  Sorry, but I know a lot of pot heads who would at least use the letter s rather than z on their reports