A proposed amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act by Republican Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida would cease cannabis testing for military members, Politico reports.

Should the amendment make it into the National Defense Authorization Act, it would further relax rules regarding cannabis testing within the military. As marijuana legalization sweeps the nation, more and more recruits seek out the benefits of cannabis, whether for recreational use, medical benefits, or both, especially in legal states. According to The New York Times, nearly 33% more recruits tested positive in 2022 than in 2020. At the time of reporting, medical marijuana is legal in 38 states and Washington, D.C., and adult-use cannabis is legal in 22 states and D.C.

Recently, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a spending bill that includes an amendment allowing the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) doctors to recommend medical cannabis for their patients in legal states. It will go into effect as part of the approved legislation that funds the VA for the 2024 Fiscal Year. The amendment, sponsored by Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, passed via a voice vote in June. It will yield the same results a standalone bill refiled in the House seeks to obtain, with bipartisan backing by Representative Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat from Oregon, and Florida Republican Representative Brian Mast, who lost both legs while serving in the Army in Afghanistan. Blumenauer and Mast are the co-chairs of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus.

Gaetz’s proposed amendment follows other changes regarding the Federal government’s stance on cannabis use. In May, reports showed that over the past five years, the military gave 3,400 recruits who failed a drug test on their first day a “grace period to try again.” The Army waived over 3,300 recruits who failed a drug test or admitted past drug use between 2018 and 2022. Historically, the Army is considered the most relaxed (although describing the Army as “relaxed” feels like an oxymoron) compared to other military branches. The Navy traditionally has a zero-tolerance policy for anyone who fails their entry drug test. Still, even they recently started giving recruits another chance to take another drug test after 90 days if they failed the first one, as are the Air Force and the Marine Corps.

Now is a good time to point out that piss tests are basically just cannabis tests. For example, while both cocaine and heroin show up in urine for three to four days after use, cannabis lingers for roughly 30 days and sometimes even longer. So, unless one administers the drug screening shortly after taking anything other than cannabis (although remember, under Federal law, cocaine is only Schedule II, while cannabis is Schedule I), the infamous piss test only really screws over stoners, which seems rather contradictory and unfair, although in line with most conservative’s regressive attitudes about marijuana. 

However, considering recent bipartisan support for cannabis reform, even that could be changing. Gaetz, a man associated with the far-right, who once voted to give Donald Trump the Nobel Peace Prize, wishes to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency, is virulently against abortion rights, and once voiced support for Kyle Rittenhouse, is an unlikely stoner ally. However, he is generally pro-cannabis, once stating that the federal government has “lied to the American people for a generation” about the medical benefits of marijuana. 

Gaetz’s desire to end cannabis testing for military members is tied to his desire for America to have thriving armed forces. “Our military is facing a recruitment and retainment crisis unlike any other time in American history. I do not believe that prior use of cannabis should exclude Americans from enlisting in the armed forces. We should embrace them for stepping up to serve our country,” Gaetz said in a statement.

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A number of military veterans in South Carolina are pushing lawmakers in the state to legalize medical marijuana. 

Local news station WACH reports this week on the group of vets, who “say it needs to be a top priority for lawmakers when they return to the state house in January after several proposals were stopped in their tracks earlier this year.”

“No one has died from an overdose with cannabis ever,” Cody Callarman, a former member of the Marine corps, told the news station. “For me, I can say, it definitely helps me to go to sleep and stay sleep and alleviate a lot of nightmares.”

“I say this is the land of the free, and the home of the brave, and we were the brave ones. We should have our choice of medical treatment,” Callarman added.

Another veteran named Robert Leheup told the station that the “idea of us not allowing veterans to have access to these tools is something that we need to remedy immediately.”

“It’s definitely one of those things that if you use it, along with counseling for example, it has the potential to have profound impacts,” Leheup told the station. 

Lawmakers in South Carolina considered a medical cannabis bill earlier this year. The legislation won approval in the state Senate, but in May, it was voted down in the state House of Representatives. 

The sponsor of the bill, Republican state Sen. Tom Davis, has been in the vanguard of the effort to legalize medical cannabis treatment in the state for years. 

“If you pound at the door long enough. If you make your case. If the public is asking for something, the state Senate owes a debate,” Davis said in January. “The people of South Carolina deserve to know where their elected officials stand on this issue.”

After the legislation was approved in the state Senate in February, Davis commended his colleagues. 

“Even those that were opposed to the bill, I mean, they could’ve just been opposed. They could’ve ranted against it, they could’ve tried to delay things. They didn’t. They expressed their concerns, but what they then did is dug in and tried to make the bill better. And so, what you saw over the last three weeks is what’s supposed to happen in a representative democracy,” Davis said at the time.

But in May, Davis’s bill was rejected by his counterparts in the state House of Representatives by a vote of 59-55.

“We suffered a setback procedurally in the House today,” Davis said at the time. “I can’t cry about it. I can’t pout about it. I can’t come back and lash out and try to hurt other people’s bills. That’s not productive. I just need to find out a way to get this thing on the merits up or down in the House and that’s what I’m going to be working on.”

Should lawmakers take up the proposal in the upcoming session, there will be opposition.

Local news station WACH quoted state House Rep. Vic Dabney, a veteran himself, who said he intends to oppose the next legislation.

“I know a lot of veterans that are not sitting down eating gummy bears laced with cannabis,” Dabney told the station. “We’ve got enough drugged up people in America as it is.”

“It was going to be another government program and a huge boondoggle where you’d have more than 400 dispensaries across the state,” Dabney added. “That was further reasons for me to vote against it.”

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