Out of curiosity, I applied for the BPD many years ago (2002?). One thing they did was to ask candidates if anyone had smoked marijuana before and if so how many times had I done it. I answered yes and since I had smoked it more than x number of times in the past x number of years, they told me to go home.

That's fine. Sure I've tried it and I think the plant should be legalized given the dubious circumnstances by which it found itself illegal. AND I don't even like it anymore. It makes me nervous.

But I think others should have the right to use it so long as they aren't driving a plane or a bus or operating any heavy machinery like that.

Sites like craigslist and backpage.com and other 'free classified' web pages are becoming increasingly scrutinized by police because they act as large impulse solutions for the sickos out there. Check out the personals on any of these sites and they're disturbingly perverse. These people posting are making themselves accessible to the worst of the worst human behavior.

Hilarious, I have to assume that the Craigslist ad is a joke. I'm thinking why would someone with the qualifications for the job want to come to Baltimore and suffer with a police department that has no morale, is 2nd in the nation in violent crime, which has so many internal problems, such a bad reputation, and would make considerably less then what a mid level supervisor would make in another agency? Being a Baltimore Police Officer myself I have to look at everything that is happening in the agency and say well the old adage of you get what you pay for is indeed true. I know times are indeed hard economically, but has anyone wondered why we have such problems? lets see, we have a police force that continues to have rogue officers and multiple discipline problems which are continually coming to the forefront, we have had such a high attrition rate, that the rate of hiring was substantially higher then the amount of adequately qualified applicants available, therefore you have more people likely to get into trouble and or less capable, think about it, the reason you do a promotional exam and score the results are so you can put together a list of qualified members eligible for promotion in the order of the scores they receive, logic would dictate that the further down the list you go, the less qualified the person is for the promotion, therefore you try to determine how many eligible candidates you can reasonably promote off of a particular list so as not exceed the amount of top qualified candidates available, so would not the same logic apply to hiring candidates? Now the sticky part, you have a city that for all intensive purposes can't provide the basics to the police department, poor training, poor equipment, poor pay, lousy work schedule (six 8.5 hour days with two days off) and a heavy work load. With all these added up it goes without saying that perhaps (although I'm certain) these are the reasons why the agency will always be broken. Now a lot of people would say that the answer is not to just throw more money at the problem, I disagree with that thought, I will say that the money given has to be used wisely, although I'm not even sure government is capable of using money wisely, let alone city government which has a storied history of mismanaging funds and resources. If you were doing a construction job or home repair would you buy your tools at a dollar store? And if you did, would you wonder why they didn't perform up to your expectation or standard, I don't think you would. Then why is everyone shocked at why the police department and the city have so many problems, you can't realistically expect to fix a leaking roof with the wrong tools and $5.00 dollar budget, with people who are not trained or taught construction properly, let alone fix the city's vast crime problems with broken tools and a barely functioning police department. As I see it you have two options, accept the job the department is doing as being the best it is capable of doing under its current conditions, or change the department to make it capable of doing the job it is responsible for doing. But once again the city has shown that it is not capable of the proper funding that is required.

I find it laughable that a major (and urban) police department has resorted to attempting to fill vacancies from posting ads on a site such as "Craigslist.org". This is a site widely known for advertising the seemlier side of life or hugely discounted, for sale items. Where the Chief of C.I.D. fits into this is hard to tell, exactly. The Baltimore police department will always cast the image of being second rate as long as this thought process prevails in searching for its command members.
P.S. Is the spokesperson stupid or does he think that the public is? Does he really expect us to buy that the BPD is searching for someone in this manner because they want to ensure the candidate has tech (or internet) skills? Ever hear of Careerbuilder.com or Monster.com?