Five White House staffers have been fired because of their past use of drugs, including marijuana, press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday.
Marijuana has become a delicate issue for President Joe Biden’s administration because 15 states and Washington, D.C., allow for recreational usage, despite a federal prohibition. The administration has tried not to automatically penalize potential staffers for legal behaviour in their communities by developing a more flexible policy, Psaki said in a statement to The Associated Press.
“In an effort to ensure that more people have an opportunity to serve the public, we worked in co-ordination with the security service to ensure that more people have the opportunity to serve than would not have in the past with the same level of recent drug use,” Psaki said. “While we will not get into individual cases, there were additional factors at play in many instances for the small number of individuals who were terminated.”
As a result, more people will serve who would not have in the past with the same level of recent drug use. The bottom line is this: 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.
— Jen Psaki (@PressSec) March 19, 2021
The Daily Beast website first reported the firings Thursday night.
Hundreds of aides in the 2-month-old Biden administration have cleared the suitability review by career staffers handling security issues. The White House has said there can be multiple factors for dismissals, including hard drug use. The marijuana policy has become less stringent under the Biden administration, allowing for up to 15 past uses in a year among White House staffers.
The broader federal government has also become somewhat more lenient, with the Office of Personnel Management releasing a memo that says a person should not be deemed unfit merely because of past marijuana usage. The seriousness of the use and the nature of the position will also be factors in judging new hires.
Security and suitability reviews have been an issue for past administrations. At least 25 clearance denials were overturned by President Donald Trump’s administration, where people faced possible disqualification because of foreign influence, conflicts of interest, concerning personal conduct, financial problems, drug use and criminal conduct.
© 2021 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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Articles from the Fake News always have to revert back to Trump. Secondly, it figures that under the Biden Administration, the liberals working for him smoke marijuana. Marijuana makes one delusional, schizophrenic, paranoid and out of reality. Delusional, schizophrenic, paranoid and out of reality describes liberals to a tee.
Sounds just like what happened on one of our bases, RIGHT AFTER CA and other states just ‘legalized recreational weed’. MANY FOLKS would come back stoned, from leave, and pop positive, and got discharge cause of it…
IT MAY BE legal in your home state, but ITS still not legal in the military!
BUT i can certainly see the libtards in office, PUSH to make it legal for federal workers/military folks..
Well he is doing better than Obama who had over 100 staffers fail to pass the drug screens, but unlike Biden nobody got fired under Obama.
There is a famous photo of Obama back in the “choom gang” days, smoking a reefer. It is said he also distributed cocaine at some level in his alleged college days.
Bill Clinton smoked pot and used cocaine.
Yeah, but he never inhaled. Remember?
Maybe tha’s why joe is so mental.. HE SMOKED TOO MUCH weed as a teen/college kid!
Kamala laughed and giggled about her marijuana high but she won’t be fired. She’ll be president as soon as they can get Joe to fall down the stairs instead of up.
Come on MAN ! we voted for you a couple of times!
When are they canning Horizontal Harris for her drug use ?
A) she’s black
B) Shes a dem
and C) she’s got the whammmen card.
SO never.