FBI mulling recruitment of 'hackers on cannabis' to battle cybercrime

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Despite the fact that FBI current policy prohibits anyone working for it who has used cannabis in the past three years, the organization's director James Comey has acknowledged that this is complicating its efforts to recruit hacking experts, according to The Wall Street Journal.

"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 the White Collar Crime Institute's annual meeting.



Mr. Comey said that the agency was "grappling with the question right now" of how to amend the agency's marijuana policies. When one conference goer asked him about a friend who had shied away from applying because of the policy, Mr. Comey said that "he should go ahead and apply."
BBC reports that while the UK's National Cyber Crime Unit's policy does not specifically single out cannabis, it does have a wider anti-drugs rule. "Whilst previous drug taking is not necessarily a barrier to employment provided people are open about it, applicants are told not to apply if they have taken illegal drugs in the preceding 12 months," said a spokeswoman for the National Crime Agency, of which the NCCU is a division.

Dr. Richard Clayton, from the University of Cambridge's Computer Laboratory, said that it would be prudent to review such rigid policies. "The sort of hackers that you want to hire tend to be young, the young tend to have bad habits such as smoking marijuana, and over time you'd expect them to do this less," he said.