It didn't take but a day for James Comey, the director of the FBI, to backtrack on his statements that the bureau was considering reforming hiring policies to attract marijuana-smoking cyber analysts. "I am absolutely dead-set against using marijuana,” Comey told a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing Wednesday. “I did not say that I am going to change that ban."

On Tuesday, however, the director said he was "grappling with the question right now" about whether to lift a policy that precludes the FBI from hiring candidates who had used marijuana the past three years.

"I have to hire a great work force to compete with those cyber criminals, and some of those kids want to smoke weed on the way to the interview," Comey told a gathering at the New York City Bar Association on Tuesday.

At that meeting, an attendee told the director that an acquaintance had decided not to apply to the bureau because of the anti-marijuana policy. Comey responded, "He should go ahead and apply."

During the Wednesday oversight hearing, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) criticized the director's remarks from the day before. "I'm determined not to lose my sense of humor," Comey responded.