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From Press Secretary Jen Psaki: White House Past Use Of Marijuana Policies Updated

by Jaybird · March 19, 2021

Jaybird

Jaybird is Birdmojo on Xbox Live and Jaybirdmojo on Playstation's network. He's been playing consoles since the Atari 2600 and it was Zork that taught him how to touch-type. If you've got a song for Wednesday, a commercial for Saturday, a recommendation for Tuesday, an essay for Monday, or, heck, just a handful a questions, fire off an email to AskJaybird-at-gmail.com

Jaybird says:

March 19, 2021 at 11:01 am

Vaguely related:

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Brandon Berg says:

March 20, 2021 at 3:37 am

We’ll probably never find out because of privacy rules, but my bet is that this is a reasonable outcome, in that these people were applying for jobs in particularly sensitive positions and/or had a history (or present) of particularly heavy drug use. I’m fairly confident that more than 1% of the applicants are current users of marijuana or other recreational drugs, so clearly they’re being pretty selective here in terms of what they consider disqualifying.Report
- Jaybird in reply to Brandon Berg says:
  
  March 20, 2021 at 12:45 pm
  
  I agree that it’s not like they can come out and say “we dismissed a staffer who sold drugs in college” instead of “he admitted to getting a contact high at a Phish concert”.
  
  But Kamala bragged about smoking pot.
  
  And here we are.Report
  - Mike Schilling in reply to Jaybird says:
    
    March 20, 2021 at 1:45 pm
    
    In college, which, even if you include law school, was thirty years ago. Do you think anyone was denied a staff position for thirty-years-ago pot smoking?Report
    - Jaybird in reply to Mike Schilling says:
      
      March 20, 2021 at 1:57 pm
      
      All I have to go on is what was said and assurances that the gummint is not being dumb about it.Report
Jaybird says:

March 20, 2021 at 3:30 pm

This is from The Daily Beast:

Dozens of young White House staffers have been suspended or asked to resign due to past marijuana use, despite initial indications from the Biden admin that recreational use of cannabis would not be immediately disqualifying for would-be personnel https://t.co/S8a6Xx3dPc

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) March 19, 2021

Dozens of young White House staffers have been suspended, asked to resign, or placed in a remote work program due to past marijuana use, frustrating staffers who were pleased by initial indications from the Biden administration that recreational use of cannabis would not be immediately disqualifying for would-be personnel, according to three people familiar with the situation.

The policy has even affected staffers whose marijuana use was exclusive to one of the 14 states—and the District of Columbia—where cannabis is legal. Sources familiar with the matter also said a number of young staffers were either put on probation or canned because they revealed past marijuana use in an official document they filled out as part of the lengthy background check for a position in the Biden White House.

In some cases, staffers were informally told by transition higher-ups ahead of formally joining the administration that they would likely overlook some past marijuana use, only to be asked later to resign.

“There were one-on-one calls with individual affected staffers—rather, ex-staffers,” one former White House staffer affected by the policy told The Daily Beast. “I was asked to resign.”

“Nothing was ever explained” on the calls, they added, which were led by White House Director of Management and Administration Anne Filipic. “The policies were never explained, the threshold for what was excusable and what was inexcusable was never explained.”

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