As Congress prepares legislation to reauthorize Job Corps, the nation\u2019s largest residential career-training program for youth and young adults, the chairwoman of a key House panel is urging colleagues to consider eliminating a drug-screening requirement that each year prevents thousands of young people from participating\u2014overwhelmingly for cannabis.<\/p>\n
\u201cJob Corps enjoys widespread bipartisan support, and I hope we can find bipartisan agreement to make it even more effective,\u201d Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL), who chairs the House Higher Education and Workforce Investment Subcommittee, said at a hearing last week. \u201cThis includes changing the counterproductive \u2018zero tolerance\u2019 language enacted during the Clinton administration, which requires automatic dismissal of young people for alcohol abuse, minor drug offenses and other infractions.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBlanket drug testing, with follow up tests being required even before the chemicals may have fully left a student\u2019s body, have led to roughly 12,500 expulsions, 91 percent of which were for marijuana use,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cToday, recreational marijuana use is either legal or has been decriminalized in nearly half of our states.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rather than dismissal from the program, evidence of drug use \u201cshould instead be met with more reasonable and helpful interventions, like counseling or treatment,\u201d the chairwoman said<\/a>.<\/p>\n The House committee\u2019s discussion last Thursday was the first of three planned hearings to discuss reauthorizing the Workplace Innovation and Opportunity Act, which comprises Job Corps and other career-preparatory programs.<\/p>\n That the chair of a key subcommittee highlighted the marijuana and drug punishment in her opening remarks at the hearing signals that there\u2019s a good chance it could be eliminated or scaled back as Congress works to revise the law this session.<\/p>\n Established in 1964 and overseen by the Department of Labor, Job Corps offers free vocational skills training and other educational support to young people between the ages of 16 and 24.<\/p>\n More than two million people have participated in Job Corps since its founding, the program\u2019s website<\/a> says. But since the government imposed zero-tolerance drug rules in the 1990s, thousands of young people have been turned away. Anyone who uses drugs illegally under federal law is currently barred from participating.<\/p>\n Byron Garrett, president and CEO of the National Job Corps Association, told<\/a> lawmakers at the hearing that staff need more options than mere expulsion when responding to substance use by students.<\/p>\n \u201cOur campuses are fully aware of the need for accountability,\u201d he said, \u201cbut also acutely aware that we need a different approach than just simply saying, \u2018Oh, you tested positive.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n One in four Job Corps students are mandatorily expelled, Garrett added, mostly \u201cfor substance use or minor behavioral infractions.\u201d Those expulsions account for the majority of program participants who don\u2019t graduate, he said: \u201cEach year over 6,000 students enrolled test positive for marijuana use and, as a result, drop out or are expelled in less than a month and a half.\u201d<\/p>\n Some Republicans at the hearing<\/a>, however, challenged the notion that drug use should be forgiven.<\/p>\n \u201cI understand that there may be some nuances, you know, that are not allowed in a zero-tolerance model, but I also believe we cannot lose track of accountability and that there must be consequences for poor decisions,\u201d said Mariannette Miller-Weeks (R-IA). \u201cHow do you recommend we strike a balance so that we can truly improve outcomes for these young individuals?\u201d<\/p>\n Garrett replied that Job Corps participants \u201cwill still be expelled who don\u2019t rise to the occasion, who cause harm or put the overall program or other students in jeopardy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo one is saying that because we shift the zero-tolerance policy that we negate the notion of accountability,\u201d he said. \u201cIn fact, you\u2019ll find that students on campus and staff on campus are all in agreement that we need to ensure that folks who really want to be in this environment are doing their very level best, because no one wants the program to be jeopardized in that way.\u201d<\/p>\n But while Garrett acknowledged that drug use can indeed be an obstacle to the program\u2019s success, he also stressed that Job Corps can itself help students get on the right path. Dismissing them from the program, he suggested, robs them of an opportunity for self-improvement.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen students go through our full program, we\u2019re able to support them in getting the right behavioral supports they need to change their behavior,\u201d he said\u2014which improves academic outcomes and increases their employability.\u00a0\u201cWe know for a fact that once staff have an opportunity to work with students, to change their behavior to help them understand why they need to shift, we see a significant outcome and a significant turn.\u201d<\/p>\n Among students who test positive for cannabis or other substances and then complete the Job Corps program, he said, \u201cfour out of five of them end up with a negative test result when they test the second time.\u201d<\/p>\n Another Republican, Rep. Bob Good of Virginia, disparaged the idea of loosening the program\u2019s zero-tolerance policies. While he noted that the Old Dominion Job Corps center, which is near his district, \u201chighlighted some of their successes with my staff,\u201d he accused his Democratic counterparts of being soft on crime.<\/p>\n \u201cDemocrats want to make the drug offenses legal,\u201d he said at the hearing, implying that eliminating the zero-tolerance provision could be a slippery slope.\u00a0\u201c<\/span>I hope they won\u2019t also make the assaults legal, too, after they eliminate our police and our correctional facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n Senate Bill Would Allow CBD-Infused Foods, Drinks And Dietary Supplements<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The post Stop Kicking Young People Out Of Jobs Training Program For Marijuana, Congressional Chairwoman Says<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
As Congress prepares legislation to reauthorize Job Corps, the nation\u2019s largest residential career-training program for youth and young adults, the chairwoman of a key House panel is urging colleagues to consider eliminating a drug-screening requirement that each year prevents thousands of young people from participating\u2014overwhelmingly for cannabis. \u201cJob Corps enjoysContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81,126],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47808"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47808"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47809,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47808\/revisions\/47809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n
\nRead More: Stop Kicking Young People Out Of Jobs Training Program For Marijuana, Congressional Chairwoman Says<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"