Cops may face uphill battle in hiring
New zero-tolerance policy for cocaine use
could reduce recruit pool 30%, FBI warns
By M.E. Sprengelmeyer
Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer
Denver could have trouble finding enough
police applicants under a new zero-tolerance
policy on past cocaine use, an FBI official has
warned.
The FBI has found that of the more than 1,200
Denver-area applicants the bureau gets each
year, 30 percent have used cocaine or other
hard drugs, a spokesman said.
Jane Quimby of the FBI said only about 30
percent to 40 percent have never used any
drugs.
"It's frightening to people, but those of us who
work in hiring recognize it's not that unusual,"
Quimby said. "I wish it was surprising to me."
Mayor Wellington Webb last week announced
a new policy directive that would disqualify
police applicants who have ever used cocaine,
even in one-time experiments long ago.
Webb was responding to the controversy over
the drug past of newly hired officer Ellis
Johnson, but the policy could shrink the
applicant pool at a time when the department
needs hundreds of new recruits to replace
retiring officers.
"It's an admirable goal," Quimby said. "They're
going to find it's going to create some real
practical difficulties for them in terms of
recruiting and hiring, because in the Denver area
now it's very competitive for applicants."
Webb consulted with Safety Manager Butch
Montoya prior to the decision to make sure the
department could fill a recruiting class despite
the hard-line policy, the mayor's spokesman
Andrew Hudson said.
Interim Police Chief Gerald Whitman said he believes it will cause only a
minor dropoff in the pool of applicants as a task force led by former
Colorado Supreme Court Justice William Neighbors develops a more
comprehensive list of hiring policies.
"The cocaine usage issue is part of having consistent criteria on screening
applicants," Whitman said. "Applying that criteria leads to credibility of the
process."
Police departments nationwide have had to adjust their hiring policies
because of widespread drug use in society as a whole. Many, including
Denver, have different standards for marijuana use and a range of harder
drugs, including cocaine, heroin and other controlled substances.
Even the FBI has had to adjust its standards for applicants.
Until 1994, the FBI had a zero tolerance policy disqualifying anyone who
used marijuana or other drugs, even in one-time teen-age experiments.
"There was a determination that maybe it wasn't as realistic to expect that
people coming in would not have used any drugs whatsoever," said
Quimby, who until recently led the FBI's recruiting efforts in Denver.
The FBI's revised policy still disqualifies people who have ever sold illegal
drugs, or those who have used drugs in the past three years. They cannot
have used marijuana more than 15 times in their lives.
On harder drugs, including cocaine, they are not automatically disqualified
unless they have used the substances more than five times total or any time
within the prior 10 years.
Just because they qualify to apply for jobs doesn't mean past drug users
will get jobs, Quimby said.
None of the 37 FBI agents hired out of the Denver field office since 1998
has used cocaine, although several had limited marijuana use in their past,
Quimby said. Like Denver police and other agencies, applicants undergo
pre-employment polygraph tests to check their veracity.
"Sure, we would prefer to have applicants who had no prior drug usage,
but when our policy evolved in 1994 it was a realization that that was not a
practical reality anymore," Quimby said.
The new Denver police policy on cocaine comes at a time when the
department must step up its hiring. Over the next three years, hundreds of
veteran officers are expected to retire from the 1,400-member force, so
the city is looking to hire 400 to 500 officers. The department has
expanded its recruiting efforts and increased the number of recruits
enrolled in academy training.
Denver police spokeswoman Virginia Lopez said she is not worried about
the hard line on cocaine use affecting the applicant pool.
"If that is actually going to affect the applicant pool, it's going to be for the
better," she said. "To me, when you put on the uniform you are supposed
to represent someone who stands behind and believes in the law, and you
should lead a pretty unsullied lifestyle.
"I don't want anyone looking at our officers or our department and saying,
'Who are they to uphold the law if they are a person who has broken the
law in one way or another,"' she said.
Contact M.E. Sprengelmeyer at (303) 470-3937 or
sprengelmeyerm@RockyMountainNews.com.
February 28, 2000