Members of Congress and a former Obama Administration official who copped to using cannabis say the Biden White House’s move was bizarre and unfair.
You can smoke marijuana and become Joe Biden’s vice president and negotiate sensitive deals for Barack Obama. You can also smoke marijuana and lose your job at the White House. Which will it be? That’s for the Biden Administration to decide, and for you to find out! As The Daily Beast reported late Thursday, “dozens of young White House staffers” freshly hired were abruptly told to quit, were suspended from their jobs, or otherwise punished “due to past marijuana use.” The White House did this after the staffers themselves admitted to using cannabis—which is legal in Washington, D.C. and in 14 U.S. states—on security-clearance application forms, the website reported. While Biden has long been an opponent of cannabis reform—and is “credited” with helping create the drug war, along with the subsequent incarceration crisis—the firings and suspensions seem to contradict the White House’s own policies. In February, the White House Office of Personnel Management clarified that past marijuana use was not an automatic disqualifier, and that federal agencies “should exercise special care before making a determination of unsuitability” for employment due to past weed use. It was not immediately clear whether the cannabis use was recreational or medical, legal or illegal. One staffer indicated that it may not have mattered.
