- Several Democrats are criticizing the Biden White House for its marijuana policy for employees.
- Employees were asked to resign or work remotely due to drug use, according to The Daily Beast.
- White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the policy affected only a small number of employees.
- See more stories on the Insider business page.
Several leading Democrats are criticizing a White House policy that has disqualified or dismissed officials for marijuana use in the past, as The Daily Beast first reported on Friday.
Sources told The Daily Beast that dozens of young employees were suspended, resigned or said to work remotely after informing the White House that they had smoked marijuana recreational – a marked reversal of President Joe Biden’s government position to allow recreational smokers of marijuana apply for open positions.
The rebuke from members of the president’s own party represents a major political loophole a few days after the approval of the $ 1.9 trillion Democratic-backed COVID-19 aid package.
Democratic Representative Jared Huffman of California shared his discontent with politics on Friday with The Daily Beast, noting that medical cannabis is now the law of the land in most states and Washington DC and expressing that the country ” evolved beyond [former US Attorney General] Jeff Sessions’ reefer hysteria madness. “
“I want to find out how and why this happened and, obviously, I will urge you to change course,” he said. “This government has promised a more enlightened approach, but at some point along the line they have returned to dogma.”
Democratic Congressman Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, the co-chair of Congress’s Cannabis Caucus, was even more severe in his criticisms.
“What is happening now is a vivid illustration of unrealistic, unfair and out of reach cannabis policies,” he told The Daily Beast. “There is confusion across the country because of outdated laws and the fact that the American public is not waiting for the federal government to start acting together. This is an opportunity for the Biden government to help end the failed War on Drugs and make a more rational policy for everyone. “
He added: “In the meantime, these young people should not be singled out and discriminated against for what is legal in much of the country and supported by the vast majority of Americans.”
White House press secretary, Jen Psaki addressed the regression to the report on Twitter, noting that of the hundreds of employees hired, only five individuals were no longer serving in the administration.
“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 wrote.
Psaki did not specify how many candidates were potentially prevented from actually being hired, but he told The Daily Beast that there were other considerations regarding the individuals affected by the policy.
“In an effort to ensure that more people have the opportunity to serve the public, we work in coordination with the security service to ensure that more people have the opportunity to serve than they would have in the past with the same level of recent drug use. “she said in a statement. “Although we don’t go into individual cases, there were additional factors at play in many cases for the small number of individuals who were fired.”
Other members did not bite their tongues when responding to the report, including California’s progressive Democratic MP Ro Khanna.
“This is an absurd policy that will block law-abiding people – particularly people of color – from pursuing careers in public service,” he told The Daily Beast. “It is even more unfair that many of these employees have applied for their security clearance with the understanding that past marijuana use would not be held responsible against them.”
Although marijuana is legal in Washington DC and 14 states, possession of the drug remains a federal crime, as it is still considered a Class I drug, the “most dangerous class” of substances.