SMOKING OUT POLICE WHO USE POT

Lie-detector program to be used in weeding out applicants

There's no room for pot users on the Quebec City police force.

To drive that message home, the force has introduced lie detectors to
probe past and recent drug usage and explore other personal habits
while screening this year's crop of 135 applicants for cop jobs.

This year's final hiring quota has yet to be determined; last year,
the force took aboard 69 rookie officers.

"You can't be in the police and smoke pot on the weekend -no way,"
Serge Belisle, chief of the 820-officer force, said yesterday.

"There seems to be more tolerance to consumption of what are called
recreational drugs in our society -and among young people."

When many of the current police applicants were in Grades 7 through 9
- -in 2002 -32 per cent of Quebec students in those grades reported they
had smoked marijuana at least once, according to that year's Health
Canada Youth Smoking Survey.

That was far above 18 per cent in British Columbia, the next-highest
level. Ontario was lowest, at 11 per cent.

Quebec placed No. 1 for marijuana use in the industrialized world in
the 2007 World Drug Report of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs.

"No citizen should think that an officer who is driving 140 kilometres
an hour, with flashers and siren, smokes dope on the weekends,"
Belisle said.

Results of the lie-detector program, launched on a pilot basis in
December, will be evaluated at the end of 2011.

An "episodic" drug history -for instance, if applicants admit to pot
use in high school -will not necessarily slam the door for recruits,
Belisle said.

"Everything has to be taken into consideration when we make the hiring
decision." A management committee is to rule on "borderline cases."

The RCMP has used polygraphs during hirings since 2005, but Belisle
said this is the first such move for any police force based in Quebec.

Senior officials of the Montreal police department couldn't be reached
to say whether they are contemplating a similar measure.

The Surete du Quebec evaluated adding lie detectors to its screening
process last year, but rejected that in favour of detailed
psychometric and personality testing, Sgt. Genevieve Bruneau said. It
expects to hire 230 rookie officers this year, on a force of 5,466.

The Quebec City exams will compare responses from candidates who are
hooked up to polygraphs with the answers they gave in detailed
application questionnaires.

The city has been conducting urine tests on police recruits for the
past year, Belisle said. So far, one drug user has been weeded out. He
said he couldn't specify what drug was found.

A private firm, Detecteur deVeriteInc. of St. Constant, has the one-
year, $70,000 municipal contract to conduct the polygraph screenings.