FBI Loosens Marijuana Rules to Attract Best Hackers?

A woman smokes marijuana — About 6.5 percent of high-school seniors said they regularly smoked marijuana in 2013. (Image credit: Smoking marijuana photo via Shutterstock)

Good help is hard to find — at least if the help includes drug-free computer hackers, apparently.

FBI director James B. Comey said on Monday (May 19) that the agency is grappling with the idea of loosening restrictions against marijuana smoking, because it's simply too hard to attract top-notch computer hackers otherwise. The agency wants to fill more than 2,000 jobs in its cybercrime unit, but is having trouble luring talented applicants, according to the International Business Times.

"I have to hire a great work force to compete with those cyber criminals and some of those kids want to smoke weed on the way to the interview," Comey told the New York City Bar Association.

But would-be FBI employees should put away their dime bags for now. When questioned about his statements on today (May 21) by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Comey said he was dead-set against marijuana smoking and did not say he would reverse a ban on hiring the drug's users.

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Tia is the editor-in-chief (premium) and was formerly managing editor and senior writer for Live Science. Her work has appeared in Scientific American, Wired.com, Science News and other outlets. She holds a master's degree in bioengineering from the University of Washington, a graduate certificate in science writing from UC Santa Cruz and a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Tia was part of a team at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that published the Empty Cradles series on preterm births, which won multiple awards, including the 2012 Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism.