Try again if you fail the first time. This is the motto of a Democratic congressman, who has spent months trying to stop the use of federal funding to test for marijuana in job applicants.
Rep. Robert Garcia, D-CA, has pledged to implement the modest reform by filing a proposal amendment to 12 separate bills of appropriations covering multiple federal agencies. The GOP-controlled Rules Committee blocked all of them from being voted on, but Garcia is still pushing for more.
Garcia has recently filed a measure that would amend FSGG (Financial Services and General Government) spending bill. It is scheduled to be heard by the committee on Monday. The measure is likely to meet the same fate, if the current trend continues, as the other versions he has sponsored with no immediate success.
“It’s very basic to me.” The country has advanced far beyond this issue. In a telephone interview with Marijuana Moment, Garcia said, “It’s absurd that cannabis is not legalized at the federal level, on a national scale, as I believe most Americans understand that should be the case.” “The war on drugs, the push against cannabis–I find it so outdated.” “I’m trying to modernize how we hire.”
The newly elected congressman says his interest in this modest reform stems largely from his time as mayor of Long Beach, California, between 2014 and 2022. During that period, California expanded its medical cannabis program, which allowed for recreational use. This forced employers to reconcile their workplace drug policies.
Garcia claimed that he was involved in “reforming our hiring practices within the city as well as different departments.”
He said that he was influenced by his experience in Long Beach, where the local government employed 5,500 people. “I also believe, on a general level, that drug criminalization, and especially cannabis, should be reformulated here,” he added.
Garcia explained that they wanted to ensure that the municipal laws did not penalize anyone, including law enforcement. The fact that we asked people about marijuana and used that as a condition, that’s super outdated.
California’s state legislature also addressed the issue by passing legislation in this session that prohibits employers from asking applicants about previous marijuana use . Gov. Gavin Newsom, (D), signed this measure into law on September.
It has been more difficult to take this effort to the federal government, especially in the GOP-controlled U.S. House of Representatives. This year, the Rules Committee has been a major obstacle to reforming drug policy. The Rules Committee has not singled Garcia out; it has blocked many marijuana and psychedelics-related amendments to spending legislation from being considered on the floor, including those with bipartisan sponsors.
The committee can still make the amendments to the appropriations bill Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies, (CJS), and Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, (LaborH), which the panel has yet to consider. Just this week, the committee blocked two versions that covered Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies, and Interior, Environmental, and Related Agencies.
Garcia’s earlier attempts to change employment policy by using spending legislation has been blocked in multiple ways.
The Departments of Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies , the Departments of Homeland Security, Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, State and Foreign Operations, and Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies.
Garcia stated, “It’s unfortunate but we will continue to do it.”
He said that it was important to continue pushing the issue. “I know that many of my colleagues still do not understand the issue and I believe we are behind the rest of the country in terms of legalization. But we will continue to push this as much as we can.”
The congressman, despite the legalization, said that marijuana drug testing should be removed as a matter of course.
He said, “It is even more absurd that we have to continue focusing on this testing.” “We’re facing a severe labor shortage and are going to refuse federal jobs due to cannabis use, regardless of whether it was current or prior? “I think it’s an error.”
Since entering Congress in this year, Garcia has taken a lead role in advocating psychedelics legislation. He introduced a bill this session with Rep. Earl Blumenauer(D-OR), which would prevent the use of federal funding to interfere with state and local laws that legalize psilocybin.
He and Blumenauer – a co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus who announced recently that he would not seek reelection in 2014 – are also behind a CJS appropriations amendement to enact a limited version that affects jurisdictions that have legalized psychedelics for medical purposes.
The psychedelics measure is aimed at states that have medical psilocybin. Its practical impact, if it were to be passed, may be limited, as no state has explicitly approved psilocybin for therapeutic purposes, like they did with marijuana.
The psychedelics legislation that has been passed in states such as Colorado and Oregon is more open-ended. It acknowledges the therapeutic potential in substances like psilocybin, without requiring adults jump through hoops in order to prove their patient status to receive state-legal services. Locally, the focus of psychedelics law reform has been primarily on deprioritization.
Newsom , to the dismay of activists, vetoed a bill this session that would have legalized certain psychedelics as well as created a workgroup to make recommendations for future regulated access.
Garcia wrote a letter in support of state legislation to Governor Newsom. He said that he supported Newsom but wished he had signed the measure.
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In the meantime, the Rules Committee has allowed separate GOP-led psychedelics bills to be considered on floor in another appropriations measure that was ultimately passed by the full House.
The House passed two amendments that would allow VA doctors the ability to recommend medical cannabis to veterans. Another would encourage the research of the therapeutic potential of psychedelics such as psilocybin or MDMA.
The Senate passed a bill Wednesday which includes a similar allowing VA to issue recommendations for medical marijuana to veterans who live in states that allow it, setting the stage for a conference with the House.
The House also approved in September a pair of measures for psychedelics, as well an amendment to create federal labeling requirements relating to marijuana interactions with prescribed drugs, as part of the Department of Defense funding bill.
In July, the Senate passed a defense bill that included provisions prohibiting intelligence agencies such as the CIA or NSA from denying security clearances solely based on past marijuana usage. Other cannabis proposals such as that of Sen. Brian Schatz, D-HI, to allow medical marijuana use by vets , did not make it into the National Defense Authorization Act.
The Rules Committee blocked more than a dozen amendments on marijuana and psychedelics in the House version of NDAA. This happened in July. This includes a measure that was introduced by Garcia which would have prevented denials of security clearance for federal employees due to prior cannabis use.
In September, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee approved a bipartisan standalone bill that would prohibit the denial or refusal of federal employment and security clearances because a candidate has used marijuana in the past.
New FDA documents look back on 50 years of marijuana research while previewing future studies on Terpenes and edibles
The article Congressman behind Amendments to End Marijuana Tests for Federal Job Applicants explains Why he keeps fighting despite GOP opposition first appeared on Marijuana moment.
