COPS MAY FACE UPHILL BATTLE IN HIRING

New Zero-Tolerance Policy For Cocaine Use Could Reduce Recruit Pool
30%, FBI Warns

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.