In this age of digital privacy, the ability to hack (and hack well) seems to be rocketing up the priority list of computer skills. People have shown in the past how they managed to get into some high-level places with just a laptop and fast fingers.

Naturally, intelligence agencies are always on the look out for the best and brightest, but it seems as though one place can't seem to catch a break: the FBI.

Former director James Comey told the Wall Street Journal that because of the bureau's rule that they can't hire anyone who's smoked weed in the past three years, they've had to turn away a lot of potential candidates.

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"A lot of the nation's top computer programmers and hacking gurus are also fond of marijuana," he explained to the newspaper.

"I have to hire a great workforce to compete with those cyber criminals and some of those kids want to smoke weed on the way to the interview."

James Comey. Credit: PA

When he made those statements in 2014, there were concerns in some political corners on Capitol Hill that Mr Comey wanted to rescind the FBI's outlook on potential candidates and their love of the ganja.

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Senator Jeff Sessions, now the US Attorney General, asked Mr Comey at a FBI oversight hearing: "Do you understand that that could be interpreted as one more example of leadership in America dismissing the seriousness of marijuana use? And that could undermine our ability to convince young people not to go down a dangerous path?"

He replied by saying: "I waxed philosophic and funny to say, look, one of our challenges that we face is getting a good workforce at the same time when young people's attitudes about marijuana and our states' attitudes about marijuana are leading more and more of them to try it.

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"I am absolutely dead set against using marijuana. I don't want young people to use marijuana. It's against the law. We have a three-year ban on marijuana. I did not say that I'm going to change that ban. I said I have to grapple with the change in my workforce."



Since then, there have been a few states to legalise or decriminalise weed but the FBI's stance is still very strong. But while weed carries a three-year waiting period, use of any other illegal substance carries a 10-year ban from joining the bureau.