A person with a history of marijuana use, no matter how sporadic, is not typically considered a qualified candidate for law enforcement. These agencies have long since preferred to recruit, what they perceive to be, more upstanding members of civil society to help further their rough neck agendas. Perhaps this is because, for the past several decades, one of the main job requirements of a police officer has been to serve as a foot soldier in the American drug war.<\/p>\n
So it stands to reason that a former stoner might be a conflict of interest in the impossible fight to rid the streets of illegal\u00a0drug across the United States. But that was before. These days, marijuana is being legalized in more jurisdictions for medicinal and recreational use. In fact, more than half the nation has embraced the leaf in some form or fashion. Some\u00a0say<\/a>\u00a0it is just a matter of time before the federal government is finally forced to throw in the towel and deem the herb a legitimate part of national commerce. But until then, some recruits are going to be trashed for dabbling in the doobie.<\/p>\n Still, some police departments are relaxing their policies when it comes to candidates that may have experimented with the herb as part of their youth. The Chicago Police Department \u2014 the second largest cop shop in the country \u2014 is one of them. The city\u2019s Human Resources Board\u00a0confirmed last week with the Chicago Sun-Times<\/a> that the CPD has, in fact, eliminated past marijuana use as an automatic disqualifier.<\/p>\n This policy change comes two years after Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel announced that he was open to hiring police officers that may have been convicted of minor drug or other criminal offenses. His decision to lift these restrictions, as per the recommendations made during the Obama administration, was intended to pull in more minorities to help get a handle on the city\u2019s high crime rate. The Council\u2019s Black and Hispanic Caucuses also pressured the mayor to adopt this less restrictive policy.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to take a look at the general idea that, if somebody did something when they were 16 or 17, that doesn\u2019t become an entire impossibility, as long as it\u2019s not serious, to joining a police department,\u201d Mayor Emmanuel said back in December 2016.<\/p>\n Although this minute change in the city\u2019s police recruitment policy was helpful, it wasn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n On July 20, during a meeting with the Chicago City Council\u2019s Committee on Workforce Development, chairman Salvador Cicero revealed that the city has been seeing an increasing stack of appeals from police candidates who were passed over for using substances like marijuana and Adderall. The three-member board agreed to change the way it handles these applications, \u201cbut it\u2019s on a specific case-by-case basis,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n The city\u2019s cases of past marijuana use could be more frequent than they think. Illinois already has a\u00a0medical marijuana program<\/a>\u00a0on the books. In March, 63\u00a0percent of the voters in Cook County said \u201cyes\u201d when asked \u201cShall the State of Illinois legalize the cultivation, manufacture, distribution, testing, and sale of marijuana and marijuana products for recreational use by adults 21 and older subject to state regulation, taxation and local ordinance?\u201d Lawmakers are hoping to discuss\u00a0recreational use<\/a>\u00a0in 2019. Legal cannabis could soon be a big part of Chicago\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n This does not mean the force is turning a blind eye to marijuana use. Police Department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told the news source that \u201cthe circumstances around historical usage and experimentation\u201d would be evaluated as needed. A candidate with an extensive record of smoky indiscretions might not receive the same leniency as someone who got high once at a concert. Either way, recruits that check the box, \u201cYes, I have smoked marijuana\u201d will have to jump through more hoops than their straight edge counterparts.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the current hiring plan, our standards were recently modified and conform to national best hiring practices for major city police departments and many federal law enforcement agencies,\u201d Guglielmi said. \u201cIndividuals who have used or experimented with certain types of narcotics in the past must undergo additional background investigation into the reasons behind the drug use.\u201d<\/p>\n Perhaps it is time for more law enforcement agencies to take similar action. In the midst of increasing violence in parts of the country, recruitment is down in many jurisdictions. Furthermore, disqualifying a candidate for having a connection to the cannabis scene is only going to thin the pool further in the years to come. Some of the latest data shows that\u00a0more than half of the adults in the U.S.<\/a>\u00a0have tried marijuana at least once in their life.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>,\u00a0have you ever been disqualified from a job due to cannabis use?<\/p>\n The post Chicago Cops No Longer Rejected for Past Cannabis Use<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
A person with a history of marijuana use, no matter how sporadic, is not typically considered a qualified candidate for law enforcement. These agencies have long since preferred to recruit, what they perceive to be, more upstanding members of civil society to help further their rough neck agendas. Perhaps thisContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,2544,5063,99,5064,1051,687,4318],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28072"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28072"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28073,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28072\/revisions\/28073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
\nRead More: Chicago Cops No Longer Rejected for Past Cannabis Use<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"