A top U.S. intelligence official reaffirmed on Wednesday that it is not the federal government\u2019s current policy to deny people security clearances based on past marijuana use alone, stating that it is counterproductive to recruitment efforts, especially amid the growing legalization movement.<\/p>\n
At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing,\u00a0Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) took the opportunity to ask Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Avril Haines to explain the rationale behind the discretionary policy on prior cannabis use.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe recognize, frankly, that many states have legalized or decriminalized marijuana use and wanted to be sure that we\u2019re not disqualifying people solely for that purpose in that context,\u201d she replied.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe obviously believe that we want to have the talent that exists in America\u2014and when somebody is using [cannabis] experimentally in a legal state that\u2019s something that shouldn\u2019t on its own essentially disqualify,\u201d Haines said<\/a>. \u201cWe continue to approach this from a whole-person perspective. And we expect if anybody takes the job to comply with our policies and our laws in a trusted position.\u201d<\/p>\n DNI issued a memo in 2021 saying that federal employers shouldn\u2019t outright reject security clearance applicants<\/a> over past use and should also use discretion when it comes to those with cannabis investments in their stock portfolios.<\/p>\n A spokesperson in the DNI\u2019s office told Marijuana Moment at the time that \u201cincreased legalization of marijuana use at state and local levels has prompted questions on how the federal government treats an individual\u2019s involvement with marijuana to determine eligibility for national security positions or access to classified information.\u201d<\/p>\n Last year, the Intelligence Committee approved an amendment<\/a> from Wyden that would have codified that the federal government would be prohibited from denying people the security clearances they need to work at intelligence agencies simply because they\u2019ve used marijuana.<\/p>\n That legislation had been scaled back in the panel<\/a> before advancing, as it initially would have applied to any federal worker, not just those working in intelligence.<\/p>\n But the more narrow amendment was ultimately removed<\/a> from the larger intelligence bill when senators moved to attach it to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) last year, with two GOP members blocking its inclusion.<\/p>\n On the House side, prior to a vote to pass a federal marijuana legalization bill last year, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) filed an amendment to require federal agencies to review security clearance denials going back to 1971 and retroactively make it so cannabis could not be used \u201cas a reason to deny or rescind a security clearance.\u201d But that measure was narrowly defeated in a floor vote<\/a>.<\/p>\n Raskin later said he would soon be filing a standalone legislation on the issue<\/a>, but has not yet done so.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, FBI updated its hiring policies in 2020 to make it so candidates are only automatically disqualified from joining the agency if they\u00a0admit to having used marijuana within one year<\/a>\u00a0of applying. Previously, prospective employees of the agency could not have used cannabis within the past three years.<\/p>\n Former FBI Director James Comey in 2014 suggested that he wanted to\u00a0loosen the agency\u2019s employment policies as it concerns marijuana<\/a>, as potential skilled workers were being passed over due to the requirement.<\/p>\n \u201cI have to hire a great work force to compete with those cyber criminals and some of those kids want to smoke weed on the way to the interview,\u201d he said at the time.<\/p>\n Also, in 2020, CIA said that it doesn\u2019t necessarily believe\u00a0using illegal drugs makes you a bad person<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Separately, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is planning to replace a series of job application forms<\/a> for prospective federal workers in a way that would treat past marijuana use much more leniently than under current policy. It recently sought White House approval of the policy change<\/a>.<\/p>\n Texas Marijuana Decriminalization Bill Unanimously Approved By House Committee<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of Martin Alonso<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Top Intelligence Official Says Past Marijuana Use Is Not Disqualifying For Security Clearance In Interest Of Recruiting \u2018Talent\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
A top U.S. intelligence official reaffirmed on Wednesday that it is not the federal government\u2019s current policy to deny people security clearances based on past marijuana use alone, stating that it is counterproductive to recruitment efforts, especially amid the growing legalization movement. At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing,\u00a0Sen. Ron WydenContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62483"}],"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\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62483"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62484,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62483\/revisions\/62484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Top Intelligence Official Says Past Marijuana Use Is Not Disqualifying For Security Clearance In Interest Of Recruiting \u2018Talent\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"