weed

[[e-mail]]

Well this question has probably been addressed b4 but just making sure--I admitted to smoking marijuania b4 I joined the military and plan on admitting to it after I get out when pursuing a job in law enforcement--I'm thinking that if I admit to just this ,which is all I have done, then I should be alright.Is this a safe assumption ? I mean the Air Force has paid a large sum of money to give me a very extensive background check for which I recieved the highest classified clearance given out, so this should not pose a problem with my career should it ? Thanks from Saudi Arabia--Matt

[junior]

matt,

more than likely you should be o.k.  it will really depend on the frequency of your usage, and what dept you try to get on with.  depts have varying standards on prior drug usage.  the fact that the military holds you in such high regard, is very helpful. my advice to you is that when the question comes up be truthful!!  add that your military service has helped you mature greatly, which i am sure it really has! ;D like i said you should be fine, people make mistakes.  best of luck to you.

junior  8)

[Getta]

8) Greetings Matt, Haven't seen you here before, so let me start by saying Welcome ;D.  As far as the weed is concerned, I must agree with junior, I don't think you'll have a problem with this one.  However having served in the Air Force I would like to add a few sugestions.  1.If your a Crypt I would suggest bypassing you local PD's and going right for the FBI (provided you have the college).  If your an SP or LE I venture to guess that with a little additional school, you should be able to bypass the full academy and take a shortened virsion of it, sort of like going from AF to USMC.   In any case I have serious doubts that you'll have any problems in any future ventures in LE.

Good luck and God Bless.

Vincent

[Charlie]

Matt--Just to add my comments about this issue: The key issue will likely focus on your frequency of past use. If you smoked it a few times in the past, "experimented," that sort of thing, I'd doubt it would be a problem. But as someone else pointed out, it will greatly depend upon which agency you apply with. There are some agencies out there that DQ people because of any past drug usage. On the other hand, there are lots of other agencies out there that look further into the issue before they give someone the axe. Primarily, they'll generally look at the totality of the circumstances concerning the past use and how long ago did the incidents occur.

Again, it will depend upon who you apply with. My advice is just be honest about it. Unless there is unusual circumstances at hand, I doubt there shouldn't be any problems.

[JimCMR]

To All candidates;

This past weekend I attended the Fall, Illinois Fire & Police Commissioners Training Seminar.

In speaking with many Commissioners, (In Illinois these are the folks that do the Oral interviews and the Hiring), the one theme I heard over and over, was about candidates who said they "EXPERIMENTED" with MJ, Coke, Etc.  They don't want to hear that term, it is too much of a cop out, (no pun intended).

I offer this solely for the information, if you have used in the past, I would find a different term than "Experimented".

Since, unfortunately, many of our younger (under 40) citizens did use different drugs, there is a need to explain it.  This was a problem I never had, so I can't say how I would answer the question.  Now you want to talk about beer & VO, that is another matter, ah my wasted youth (pun intended).

So for our Board members, get ahead of the pack, drop "EXPERIMENTED".  <br>
I hope this helps.     JImCMR