Five White House officials lost their jobs during the Biden government due to past marijuana use, press secretary Jen Psaki acknowledged on Friday.
But Psaki also said that the Biden government has updated its hiring policies to ensure that past marijuana use does not automatically disqualify government officials.
Psaki tweeted on Friday that the government “announced a few weeks ago that the White House had worked with the security service to update policies to ensure that previous marijuana use did not automatically disqualify employees from serving in the White House.”
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“As a result, more people will serve that they would not have in the past with the same level of recent drug use,” added Psaki.
“The bottom line is this: of the hundreds of people hired, only five people who started working at the White House are no longer employed as a result of this policy,” she said.
Psaki shared a link to an NBC News report last month, which outlined the government’s new guidelines for dealing with recreational marijuana use for potential employees.
Marijuana is legal in several cities and states, but it is still illegal under federal law and can be a disqualifying factor in obtaining safety permits, NBC reported. Biden transition officials told NBC that recreational use of marijuana was an obstacle for younger candidates.
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NBC reported that the Personnel Security Division within the White House would, on a case-by-case basis, waive the requirement that potential nominees in the President’s Executive Office be eligible for top secret authorization and that it would only be granted to those who used marijuana in a “Limited”.
It is unclear which employees lost their jobs due to the use of marijuana.