Hello,
Kind of a little bit of a young and dumb background here and wanted to see if anyone had any advice or experiences that could help clear the fog.
When I was in my early 20s I had gotten my medical marijuana card and a Marijuana Enforcement Division (MED) Badge I worked at a dispensary for a bit over a year as a bud tender. I have been out of the industry about 6 years now all my licenses and prescriptions are expired. I don’t have any criminal records but I am worried about this portion of my youth.
Would anyone know for the 10 year background check for the cfi instructor jobs at atp, would this make me ineligible? What kind of things do they look at?
Also, I have an appointment for my first class medical on Monday. I read the paperwork ahead of time and it looked like it specificity said 2 years for the marijuana use. Since it’s been six I would not need to mention my shady history correct or would not mentioning this come back to hunt me?
While it may say “2yrs” for any illegal substances I’d be concerned with the reason you were issued a script for its use? (I’m not asking). The application is very specific about any “history” of any medical or psych conditions and those must be reported and these WILL come up in a check.
Further, forget ATP, the airlines are going to ask and you might have some explaning to do.
I know you weren’t asking but it also brought up questions so I hope you don’t mind.
And again not my proudest moment.
I have no actual medical history that should have warranted a prescription.
I went in to a dr known for being a bit loose. Essentially told him my back hurts regularly and he gave me a red card. I wasn’t even asked for any medical records for proof.
I’d talk to AOPA /an aviation attorney about what you have to disclose and how best to disclose it prior to your AME appointment. Go in there unprepared and you could be looking at a costly delay.
Btw, all the airlines want at least 10yr of job history, so you might get asked about this in interviews no matter what.
I am not an airline interviewer, but I could see the job history being a bit tough to get past. I would reach out to some regional airlines directly and see what they say about it.
So update, I did reach out to an aviation lawyer, AMAS, and an airline HR hiring department. Thank you for the suggestions everyone.
For the medical side of things, basically what I was told was since mmj is not federally legal, my usage would fall under experimental. Which is only reportable if you use with in the last 2 years; So long as I never had a clinical diagnosis of dependence, resulted in a conviction, resulted in any administrative action on your driver’s license, resulted in attendance at an education or rehab program, or resulted in a failed drug test ever.
As far as the job history and getting hired that is going to be per company policy.
However for the med card, she told me that the only time she has ever encountered a med card with a perspective employee is because the employee failed a drug test and brought it in to try and get past the drug test failure. She said she has never seen a med card on a background check. She also said with the employment history they are just looking for like if at your first interview you said you had 4 years of experience flying at another company when you haven’t. Or if you were dishonorably discharged from the military.
My personal plan is to just start with ground school and written test, then I’ll start on the hours. Kind of spread things out. with how close to being ten years from when that period of my life was happening I think I’ll be pretty close to that not even being on my 10 year background check by the time I’m finished with all the requirements to fly professionally.