Michigan Senator Gary Peters (D-MI) has introduced a bill to limit the ability of federal agencies to use past marijuana use as a factor in making employment and security clearance decisions, titling it the Dismantling Outdated Obstacles and Barriers to Individual Employment, or DOOBIE, Act.
Peters filed the legislation last week, offering the latest legislative attempt to ensure that a person’s eligibility for the federal workforce is not negatively impacted just because they’re previously consumed cannabis.
The DOOBIE Act, a play on a term used to refer to a marijuana joint, states that covered agencies “may not base a suitability determination with respect to an individual solely on the past use of marijuana by the individual.” The White House Office of Personnel Management (OPM) would also need to adopt that policy.
The bill further says that “the head of a Federal agency may not base a determination that a covered person is ineligible for a security clearance solely on the past use of marijuana by the covered person.”
They additionally could not use prior cannabis use to deny a personal identity verification credential, which enables federal workers to access various facilities and information.
Also under the proposal, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) would be required to enact regulations that update its own cannabis policies and assist other federal agencies in implementing the employment and security clearance changes.
To that point, DNI has previously affirmed that it is not the federal government’s 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.
Peters’s legislation would achieve the same key objectives of a bipartisan House bill that was introduced last year. Originally, that measure would have provided employment protections and prevented security clearance denials for past and current marijuana use, but a committee amendment limited it to past consumption.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scored that bill in February, determining that it would have a “negligible” fiscal impact—in large part because analysts say provisions on reviewing past denials for potential relief likely can’t be carried out under current federal record-keeping policies.
Read more at Marijuana Moment