The White House Just Fired Five People For Past Pot Use. Didn’t They Promise It Wouldn’t Matter?

The Biden Administration tackles the tricky world of federal criminalization and state legalization of pot in its hiring

Social media exploded yesterday over a report in The Daily Beast that dozens of Biden White House staffers were being reassigned, suspended or even fired because of their prior admitted use of marijuana. Proponents of pot legalization were outraged at the moves. They seemed to run counter to an earlier pledge by the White House that it would waive or overlook prior pot use in its hiring.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki went on Twitter to reiterate the administration’s position, posting a link to a prior NBC news article and explaining, “We announced a few weeks ago that the White House had worked with the security service to update the policies to ensure that past marijuana use wouldn’t automatically disqualify staff from serving in the White House.”

The world “automatically” is doing a bit of lifting here. The White House finds itself in a jam because of the patchwork of conflicting laws that the several states have around pot versus the far stricter federal government prohibition. Under federal law, marijuana is still considered a Schedule 1 substance, meaning it is seen as having no medical value and high potential for abuse. (Many experts dispute this classification on both counts.) So long as it remains so classified, federal regulations will feel unduly harsh to those from jurisdictions where it’s no big deal.

Federal employees continue to remain bound by federal law defining marijuana as a controlled substance. However, as reported in the Washington Post, in February of this year the Office of Personnel Management issued new considerations for what the government calls “suitability” decisions for marijuana for both new and continuing employees:

“As more state laws have changed, federal agencies are increasingly encountering individuals whose knowledge, skills, and abilities make them well-qualified for a position, but whose marijuana use may or may not be of concern when considering the suitability or fitness of the individual for the position,” the memo says. 

And further, while use or possession of marijuana could disqualify an applicant or merit the firing of a current employee on grounds of illegal use of a controlled substance or of criminal conduct, “OPM’s suitability regulations do not permit agencies to automatically find individuals unsuitable for federal employment based on either factor,” it says. “Rather, when agencies consider the suitability or fitness of an applicant or appointee for a position, the individual’s conduct must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis to determine the impact, if any, to the integrity and the efficiency of the Government.”

As NBC News reports, after extensive consultation with security officials, the White House said a waiver for past marijuana use would only be granted where marijuana use had been on a “limited” basis and for positions that do not ultimately require a security clearance. Those granted waivers have to agree to cease all marijuana use for the entirety of their government service and agree to random drug testing. 

Based on these guidelines, in the end only five employees within the White House were let go because of past admission of marijuana use. Wrote Psaki on Twitter, “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.”

Why these five? There are some indications that other previous hard drug use was involved for at least some of those let go. Their marijuana use may also have been far more than limited. In any event, the firings affect just 1% of White House employees under what appear to be exceptional circumstances.

As a generation of young people living in states like California and Colorado (where marijuana is legal) enter the federal workforce, the schism between state and federal marijuana law will become starker and more consequential. Many see this as strong reason to reform federal law now to keep it more in step with the changing times and to not penalize these employees or keep them and their talents out of the federal workforce.