Members of staff at The White House are said to have been asked to resign or work remotely after it came to light during secret service background checks that they had previously used marijuana.
Five people have been released from their employment while many others are working from home but in some cases, other security issues including hard drug use played a part in their dismissal.
Currently, marijuana is legal in 15 states, including Washington D.C, while medicinal marijuana is legalised in 36 states.
Despite this, possession of marijuana is still illegal under federal law which could cause difficulties for those hoping to pass security checks.
A report by The Daily Beast states that an anonymous former employee of the Biden administration said: "There were one-on-one calls with individual affected staffers—rather, ex-staffers, I was asked to resign."
They added: "Nothing was ever explained, the policies were never explained, the threshold for what was excusable and what was inexcusable was never explained."
Shortly after the report came to light, President Biden's press secretary Jen Psaki took to her Twitter page to say that the administration had worked with the secret service to "update the policies".
Psaki penned: "We announced a few weeks ago that the White House had worked with the security service to update the policies to ensure that past marijuana use wouldn't automatically disqualify staff from serving in the White House.
"As a result, more people will serve who would not have in the past with the same level of recent drug use.
"The bottom line is this: of the hundreds of people hired, only five people who had started working at the White House are no longer employed as a result of this policy."
It comes after it was revealed by NBC News last month that White House officials would be reviewing each employee on a "case-by-case basis", with officials saying that a waiver would be used for those who have used marijuana on a "limited basis".
A former spokesperson for the National Security Council, Tommy Vietor told The Daily Beast that it was "absurd" to vet candidates for previous marijuana use.
He added that the use of the drug should not be used to determine whether an individual is to be trusted handling information that is in the interests of national security.
During previous presidencies, employees have had their jobs withdrawn while in service while applications have abruptly come to a halt after it was discovered they had used marijuana.
