I once worked with a guy who had previously worked for GCHQ doing something with cyphers/cryptography. He said he had never consumed more drugs in his life than during that period. They didn't care he took drugs as long as he was open about it and couldn't be black mailed through his use of drugs.

Interesting! Though GCHQ is UK, I'm not sure what the NSA is like. My impression so far here has been that they tend to hire people who live rather boring, quiet personal lives, since they're easier to vet.

I'm sure non-mainstream political views likely count against you more, though.

Also a lot of hackers/engineers have ethics that don't necessarily match that of government security agencies. I would happily work to protect my country from terrorism or foreign attacks, but not if it means sacrificing the freedoms that we were originally trying to protect.

:%s/can't/won't/g

What about countries where drugs have been decriminalized?

They don’t care

Are they aware of their security talent advantage?