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Comment by johngalt | Hacker News Reader

No police officer has ever smoked weed, yet they all instantly know and can identify the smell?

I doubt they disqualify ex military members because of the potential for flashbacks.

An officially sanctioned "controlled burn" of marijuana is generally a part of any officer's training, for exactly that reason. (Not kidding.)

They need to be able to explain how they can identify the smell if asked in court, even if they've smoked it before.

I've never smoked weed, yet I can pretty instantly identify the smell. I find it to be a very unpleasant smell at that.

So there's that.

I've never smoked weed, yet I can identify it instantly. I've been around people who smoked it enough to know exactly what it smells like.

The idea that psychedelics can cause flashbacks is a myth in the first place. It's completely impossible.

Half right. They don't recur indefinitely, but they can happen within the first week or two after the trip.

But that isn't at all relevant to hiring, since past psychedelic use can't cause future flashbacks as long as the person doesn't keep using those drugs. And plus the flashbacks that happen in the first week usually only happen if one smokes weed or else is sleep deprived or otherwise stressed out, it's not something that commonly happens at random. And that's being generous and assuming that flashbacks is even the right term, since it's really just your consciousness temporarily reacting differently to other neurological stimuli rather than being purely endogenous.

But that isn't at all relevant to hiring

Agreed.

Having had a flashback once -- 30 years ago, I hasten to add, for benefit of my future employer who has dug up this comment :-) -- I think it was endogenous.

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