Five will exit White House over past marijuana use
Drug still viewed as disqualifying factor under Biden
In February, the Biden administration relaxed long-standing policies that have barred some past users of the drug from working in the White House, signaling that past marijuana use would not necessarily disqualify a person from employment.
The change was seen as a way to open the door for younger talent from parts of the country where marijuana has been legalized, but it took only a few weeks for the new guidelines to be publicly tested.
On Friday, responding to a report in The Daily Beast that said dozens of young staff members had been pushed to resign or had been reassigned to remote work based on their past marijuana use, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, confirmed that some employees had been sidelined but said that it applied to fewer people.
“The bottom line is this,” Psaki wrote on Twitter, “of the hundreds of people hired, only five people who had started working at the White House are no longer employed as a result of this policy.”
The episode highlighted how murky the new guidelines are, particularly for a White House that has pledged to embrace progressive positions. A number of officials who have disclosed past marijuana use but are still permitted to work for the Biden administration have been asked to sign a pledge not to use marijuana while working for the government, and they must also submit to random drug testing, according to officials. Not everyone who disclosed past marijuana use during an extensive background check has been given the chance to stay on.
Aides to President Joe Biden defended the policy, noting that previous administrations enforced stringent measures, including that of President Barack Obama, who engaged in recreational drug use as a youth. The Obama administration required past use to have been at least six months earlier or only two to three uses in
the past year.
Still, critics saw a culture clash between a class of young new hires — who may have been under the impression that past marijuana use would not be a disqualifying concern —
and Biden’s historically more moderate stance toward the drug. Marijuana use and possession is still a federal crime, despite fast-growing public support to legalize the drug.
“There are competing interests within the administration and policies that have been on the books for a very long time that are now coming in contact with new ideas and new people that want to change those policies,” Udi Ofer, director of the justice division at the American Civil Liberties Union. “Today we learned it can still be a disqualifier.”
The five officials Psaki mentioned Friday had been directed to resign in part because of past marijuana use, according to a person familiar with the matter but who was not authorized to speak publicly. Several in that group also had other disqualifying factors that surfaced when determining their eligibility to receive jobs in the administration, that person said.