Five White House employees have lost their jobs during Biden’s administration because of past marijuana use, media secretary Jen Psaki acknowledged Friday.
But Psaki also said the Biden administration has updated its recruitment policies to ensure that future marijuana use does not disqualify employees from serving in the administration.
Psaki on Friday tweeted that the administration “announced a few weeks ago that the White House had been working with the security service to update the policies to ensure that future marijuana use would not disqualify from serving in the White House. “
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“As a result, more people are attending than they would have previously with the same level of recent drug use,” Psaki said.
“This is the bottom line: of the hundreds of people employed, only five who started working at the White House are no longer working as a result of this policy,” she said.
Psaki shared a link to an NBC news report from last month, which outlined the administration’s new guidelines to address recreational marijuana use for potential employees.
Marijuana is legal in several cities and states but is still illegal under federal law and can be a cause of disqualification in obtaining security clearances, NBC said. Biden transition officials told NBC that recreational marijuana use was a barrier for younger applicants.
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NBC said the Department of Personnel Security within the White House would, on a case-by-case basis, reject a requirement that potential office bearers in the Presidential Executive Office be entitled to confidential clearance. high and would not be given to those who used marijuana on a “limited basis.”
It is unclear which employees lost their jobs due to marijuana use.