Using marijuana is a fireable offense in President Joe Biden’s White House, but many power players who work a couple of miles away on Capitol Hill can and do get away with it.
Few, if any, offices require drug testing or ask staffers about their previous use, more than a dozen other former and current staffers told Insider.
Congressional staffers hold some of the most powerful jobs in government, and most don’t face consequences for their recreational drug use, but minimum-wage workers can be forced to take urine tests as a condition of employment.
There’s a growing chorus in Congress led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to overhaul the nation’s cannabis laws, some of which Biden wrote in 1994 when he was in the Senate.
Barbara Boxer, a Democrat of California, on suspicion that he attempted to bring marijuana into the Hart Senate Office Building.
In 2014, Rep.
Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican being investigated by the Justice Department over allegations of sex trafficking, sometimes smells like weed when he’s on the House floor.
Some communications staffers would write press releases while stoned, hoping it would boost their creativity, according to the former House Democratic aide who said cannabis was more prevalent among Hill employees than people might think.
Another former staffer who worked for Democrats in both chambers said she only occasionally used cannabis on her own time with friends but never around anyone she worked with.
As a result, adults 21 and older in DC can possess or use limited amounts of cannabis in their homes, but businesses and individuals can’t sell it for recreational use.
That means customers who want to buy marijuana legally have to use a workaround unless they qualify for medical use.
House rules allow lawmakers to drug-test their employees if they so choose, as do policies posted on the website of the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights, which covers employees working for both chambers.
They say employees cannot use illicit drugs, become intoxicated from alcohol, or improperly use prescription medication while working.
Clearances go to one or two staffers in each Hill office and certain intelligence and homeland-security committee staff who handle classified information.
One former chief of staff to a Republican House member who also worked on committees requiring a security clearance said the process was “cumbersome and rigorous” but that everyone who gave him advice stressed the importance of being honest about past use.