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But to be clear, law enforcement agents (all as far as I'm aware) are allowed to do illegal things to catch their mark. In the US at least, this is not entrapment unless they forcibly coerce you to do something you normally wouldn't; just smoking or snorting some stuff in a casual setting isn't enough, they'd have to have you more or less at gunpoint or threatening in another way to make you do it.
Just a very important fact for people to remember: Law enforcement agents in the US can and will lie frequently and do illegal things in pursuit of their goal.
Entrapment does not mean what most people think it does, so it's not good to rely on this, as entrapment has a very narrow legal definition far away from the layperson definition.
If your active threat scope involves governments, don't expect them to behave with regards to the laws where you are; either they don't care and will just deal with the fallout, or they have explicit approval do to illegal or wrong things.
I don't have an answer on how to check for spooks, I guess you'd have to do reverse reconnaissance, but I have no idea how feasible it is. But testing legal and social norms is not reliable; governments are not really bound by their own rules, especially when it comes to branches dealing with security or intelligence.
Bonus: Hanging up a sheet between the kitchen and the living room when you cook meth, isn't enough to protect the people in the living room from catching a case of Conspiracy to Manufacture.
People directly working for a government intelligence agency, in the sense of drawing a regular salary, receiving benefits like a pension plan, and probably enjoying the protection of some sort of cover (like attache for cultural affairs at the embassy) are "operatives" or "officers."
"Agents" are people in the foreign country whom the officers convince to provide information or services for them.
Aldrich Ames, for example, was an "officer" in the CIA, working for the US, but also an "agent" of the KGB, working for the Soviets.
So, to return to the article, the US government never had a problem hiring drug users as "agents," but would not hire them as "officers."
In California, and the entire West Coast, recreational use of marijuana is as normal as alcohol use.
People that use substances are different than those that abuse substances, and yet you are conflating the two.
“Senate lets people that have had a drink before work at Intelligence agencies” “my alcoholic friends working as spooks would be a threat to national security”
“As more states legalize cannabis, it becomes less and less tenable to deny security clearances to those who have used it,” Wyden said in remarks inserted into the report. “The amendment…will help the Intelligence Community recruit the qualified personnel needed to protect the country.”