The FBI exists in a different time zone than the rest of the country; for instance, when it’s 8 o’clock here, it’s 1954 at the FBI. But it looks like the Bureau has taken a bold leap into the 21st century and I bet that if ol’ J. Edgar were alive to see it, he’d have his panties in a great, big twist for sure.

For years the Bureau was adamant about excluding people who had ever smoked pot. But today, with marijuana use almost ubiquitous across a couple of generations the Bureau is finding that its own rules are hurting its ability to hire. By blackballing people who might have once bought a Pink Floyd album or maybe stood downwind of a Jimmy Buffett concert, they’re having trouble attracting quality employees. As a result, it’s relaxing its hiring rules about illegal drug use.

In the bad old days, FBI rules refused to hire anyone who had smoked marijuana more than 15 times in their lives or who had tried other illegal narcotics more than five times. Today, applicants for jobs such as analysts or programmers must still swear that they haven’t used any illegal substances recently – three years for marijuana and 10 years for other drugs – but they are no longer ruled out of consideration because of more frequent drug use in the past. This is good news for Barry Bonds, should he decide to go into law enforcement when his baseball career is over.

FBI officials say the move is simply an acknowledgment of reality. Jeffrey J. Berkin, deputy assistant director of the FBI's security division, which implemented the new guidelines, was quoted as saying, "One of the things we came to realize was that our drug policy was largely out of step with the rest of the intelligence community and much of the law enforcement community."

How out of step? Well, the old rules often made it impossible for the FBI to hire people who were already doing top-secret work for the State Department or the CIA. And face it – when your rules are so strict that they make the CIA look like an Allman Brothers concert, you may be wrapped a little too tight.

Berkin also said, apparently with a straight face, that the tougher policy was scrapped partly because some applicants "couldn't remember how many times they had smoked pot when asked in polygraph examinations."

While some applicants are being cut a little slack, the rules are not being relaxed for FBI special agents, the fabled "G-men" who conduct most criminal and terrorism investigations. So, if you want to make a career of conducting illegal wiretaps today, but spent your college days making bongs out of Dr Pepper bottles, you’re out of luck.