The Home Committee on Oversight and Accountability final week voted 30-14 to advance a measure that will permit hashish shoppers to qualify for safety clearances and turn into federal staff, GovExec studies. The bipartisan laws, launched by Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Md) and Nancy Mace (R-SC), would finish the observe of denying safety clearances for federal staff who admit to previous hashish use. The proposal would additionally permit candidates who’ve been beforehand denied a federal job or safety clearance in 2008 or later to hunt reconsideration of that call.
Raskin indicated that he launched the measure after a constituent stated they had been denied a job alternative on the Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Companies per week earlier than their begin date as a result of they’d admitted to utilizing hashish for medical functions.
“Regardless of the speedy enlargement of all of those legal guidelines throughout the nation, hundreds of our constituents yearly are being denied a federal safety clearance or are shedding the possibility of acquiring federal employment solely as a result of they admit actually to having used marijuana prior to now, even when it was utterly lawful for them to take action.” — Raskin through GovExec
When it was first launched, the measure additionally barred the federal government from denying candidates for federal jobs or safety clearances primarily based on present hashish use however the committee eliminated these provisions earlier than approving it.
Mace defended assaults from opponents of the invoice who argue that hashish is a harmful drug, countering that if lawmakers are “involved about harmful substance use or abuse” they “must look first to alcohol, alcoholism and the habit that runs there.”
The measure strikes subsequent to the total Home for consideration.
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