Looks like that story about the Biden White House firing everyone who used marijuana is misleading at best
Last night the normally reliable Daily Beast published a story which portrayed the Biden White House as hypocritically firing and/or demoting dozens of people for past marijuana use. But something didn’t ring true about the story, as it seemed to have been almost entirely from the point of view of a handful of disgruntled former employees.
This morning White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki issued this statement: “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. 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.”
In other words, the article in question sounds like it’s misleading at best. If “dozens” of Biden White House employees have used illegal drugs, but only five of them have been fired, it sure sounds like there were special circumstances surrounding the people who were fired.
There’s an important storyline here about the ongoing legalization of marijuana across the nation and how that applies to workplace policies, as well as how the Biden administration’s policy stance on marijuana relates to its workplace stance on marijuana. But this notion that the Biden White House is firing everyone who has used marijuana? That’s pretty clearly inaccurate.
