It's very real. Having smoked or taken other illicit drugs in the recent, or not so recent, past is a major source of stress for people applying for clearance. You have to be sponsored at a significant expense by a current employer and if you don't get clearance your career is going to be upended. It's up to the worker to judge if they pre-qualify based on opaque information and anecdotes you find on Reddit.
I'd venture to guess that more tech workers lack citizenship than lack the ability to pass a drug screen. More importantly, the problem you describe is problems with the opacity and risk of failure for a clearance: not "fuckin' druggies", which is what I responded to.
> Having smoked or taken other illicit drugs in the recent, or not so recent, past is a major source of stress for people applying for clearance.
If you have broken the law in the past, the clearance processes mostly seem to care that a) you acknowledge it and have stopped b) you are upfront about it, and it can't be used as leverage against you.
If you're currently routinely breaking the law, yes, it's going to be hard to get clearance. That seems pretty reasonable to me.
generally they don't take weed to seriously, but want to know you've been drug free for roughly a year.
By comparison, several / most of the Cali tech firms I've worked for / with / around had devs hitting a THC vape at lunch. Might have had to pass a piss test to get the job, but that's just 30 days, and no one is knocking on your neighbor's doors to verify your drug and employment history.
