Marijuana Moment: Congressional Committee Directs Feds To Keep Testing Truck Drivers For Marijuana, Regardless Of Trump’s Rescheduling Move

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A congressional committee is directing federal officials to continue requiring government employees and safety-sensitive workers such as truck drivers and airline pilots to be drug tested for marijuana, “regardless of any future changes to the legal status or scheduling.”

The panel is separately urging agencies to focus on determining whether “commercially feasible technology” is available to help law enforcement detect cannabis-impaired driving, and is also supporting efforts to develop an “objective standard” to measure recent marijuana use.

The House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday approved the Fiscal Year 2027 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies spending bill and an attached report that includes several cannabis-related provisions.

One section, added during the markup via an amendment, notes that members are “aware of ongoing changes to Federal and State laws governing the legal status and scheduling of certain controlled substances” such as marijuana, and says that those reforms “should not be construed to alter existing Federal drug testing requirements applicable to Federal employees and individuals serving in safety-sensitive positions.”

Workers in positions regulated by the Department of Transportation (DOT) should continue to be tested for cannabis and other drugs, “regardless of any future changes to the legal status or scheduling of such substances under Federal law,” it says.

“Drug testing.—The Committee is aware of ongoing changes to Federal and State laws governing the legal status and scheduling of certain controlled substances. The Committee emphasizes that such changes should not be construed to alter existing Federal drug testing requirements applicable to Federal employees and individuals serving in safety-sensitive positions. The Committee directs DOT to continue requiring testing for marijuana, cocaine, opioids, amphetamines, phencyclidine (PCP), and any additional controlled substances included on the Federal drug testing panel for individuals occupying safety-sensitive positions regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Federal Railroad Administration, Federal Transit Administration, and Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, regardless of any future changes to the legal status or scheduling of such substances under Federal law.”

Last month, a pair of Republican lawmakers teamed up with anti-marijuana groups to push for a “carve-out” to ensure that safety-sensitive workers continue to be tested and punished for cannabis use.

Days earlier, DOT had issued new guidance saying that truck drivers, airline pilots and other safety-sensitive workers still cannot use medical marijuana without punishment despite the Trump administration’s move to reschedule it.

“Marijuana use is not compatible with safety-sensitive functions,” the agency said.

Medical review officers (MROs) who receive drug test results indicating cannabis consumption cannot deem them to be negative for illegal substance use, even when an employee says it was the result of state-licensed medical marijuana, the department said.

“Currently, there is no instance when the MRO could verify a laboratory-confirmed marijuana positive drug test result as ‘negative’ when an employee claims the positive was caused by a State licensed marijuana product,” DOT said, explaining that even after rescheduling, medical marijuana dispensed in accordance with state law “does not constitute” a drug that has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Adopted by voice vote.

— House Appropriations Amendments (@AppropsAmendmts) June 4, 2026

While it is widely accepted that safety-sensitive transportation workers should not perform their jobs under the influence of marijuana or other substances, legalization supporters point out that cannabis metabolites can stay in a person’s system for weeks after use and still be detected on drug tests even when there is no impairment.

The new report approved by the congressional committee also contains a passage saying that “as more jurisdictions legalize the use of recreational cannabis, law enforcement officers will need additional reliable tools to protect drivers and other road users.”

It calls on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to “assess currently available and potentially commercially feasible technology that could be used by highway enforcement authorities to assess cannabis presence.”

“Cannabis-related impairment and technology.—The Committee recognizes that as more jurisdictions legalize the use of recreational cannabis, law enforcement officers will need additional reliable tools to protect drivers and other road users. The Committee directs NHTSA, in coordination with other relevant Federal agencies, to assess currently available and potentially commercially feasible technology that could be used by highway enforcement authorities to assess cannabis presence. The Committee directs NHTSA to provide a preliminary briefing on the plans for this assessment within 180 days of enactment of this Act. The Committee simultaneously supports the development of an objective standard to measure marijuana to identify recent cannabis use and/or a related field test to ensure highway safety.”

Separately, the report addresses the issue of impaired driving more generally by urging NHTSA consider creating an interagency Impaired Driving Task Force and brief lawmakers on “any cross-agency initiatives to reduce the number of crashes and deaths associated with impaired driving.”

“Interagency impaired-driving task force.—The Committee is concerned with the rising number of crashes associated with drivers operating their motor vehicles while impaired. The Committee notes the existence of the Federal Drug-Impaired Driving Working Group and urges NHTSA to consider the merits of creating an interagency Impaired Driving Task Force or other partnerships to increase cross-agency collaboration among Federal, State, and local levels to prevent and respond to impaired driving. The Committee directs NHTSA to brief the Committees on Appropriations regarding any cross-agency initiatives to reduce the number of crashes and deaths associated with impaired driving that are identified as a result of this collaboration.”

Last month, a separate congressional committee approved transportation legislation containing provisions to require federal officials to study the issue of driving of driving under the influence of marijuana and other drugs and propose “evidence-based impairment standards.”

The new funding bill itself that was approved by the Appropriations Committee in a 34-27 vote this week contains a provision blocking the NHTSA from using any of its appropriated monies to “encourage illegal drug or alcohol use” in its public service announcement advertising campaigns.

“SEC. 141. None of the funds provided in this Act may be used to encourage illegal drug or alcohol use in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s impaired driving advertising campaigns.”

The rider is seemingly in response to previous marketing materials that leaned into cannabis culture to deter impaired driving. Marijuana legalization opponents cheered when a similar provision was approved last year.

Federal officials launched a public service announcement effort to discourage impaired driving around the cannabis holiday 4/20 this year.

NHTSA recently partnered with the Ad Council on a separate campaign to “challenge the dangerous belief that it’s safe to drive after consuming marijuana,” with a disturbing ad that they said depicts a real-life story of a child killed by a driver who was under the influence of cannabis.

That campaign represented a departure from recent cannabis-related NHTSA ads, which have taken a less “Just Say No” approach to marijuana use risk messaging and, at times, leaned into to cannabis culture to promote education around the potential consequences of driving while high.

What stood out about the messages and graphics was the lack of fear-mongering and negative depictions of cannabis consumers that’s long been a hallmark of federal marijuana PSAs, such as those funded by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) in the 1990s and 2000s that perpetuated stigmas about laziness or forgetfulness.

Instead, NHTSA seemed to be leveraging cannabis culture, with warnings against impaired driving that are coupled with images meant to appeal to marijuana consumers.

Last October, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy suggested President Donald Trump was “getting pressure” to reschedule cannabis—arguing that marijuana is “really addictive” and saying that policy reform around the issue sends a “dangerous” message.

“At a time when culture is pushing and celebrating the use of marijuana, we’re not talking about the risk,” Duffy said.

NHTSA Administrator Jonathan Morrison said last year that he was prepared to “double down” on increasing awareness about the risk of marijuana-impaired driving in partnership with the White House.

In 2021, meanwhile, NHTSA tried to get the word out about the dangers of impaired driving through an ad featuring a computer-generated cheetah smoking a joint and driving a convertible.

Critics noted that the world’s fastest land animal hardly fits the stereotype of a cannabis consumer that the government has historically played into, while other commenters pointed out at the time that the ad made the cheetah look confusingly cool as he broke the law.

The agency also played on horror-movie tropes in a 2020 ad featuring two men running for their lives from an axe murderer. The pair ultimately find a vehicle to escape the scene, but the driver pauses before he turns the key in the ignition. “Wait wait wait,” he says. “I can’t drive. I’m high.”

While it’s widely understood that driving under the influence of cannabis can be dangerous, the relationship between consumption and impairment is a messy one.

In 2024, for example, a scientific review of available evidence on the relationship between cannabis and driving found that most research “reported no significant linear correlations between blood THC and measures of driving,” although there was an observed relationship between levels of the cannabinoid and reduced performance in some more complex driving situations.

“The consensus is that there is no linear relationship of blood THC to driving,” the paper concluded. “This is surprising given that blood THC is used to detect cannabis-impaired driving.”

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice recently announced a new breakthrough in the development of a marijuana breathalyzer, with a study partly funded by the federal government showing a potential pathway for a “portable, low cost” device that looks like an inhaler for asthma, built with 3-D printed material that can detect delta-9 THC without secondary lab analysis.

Federal agencies outside of DOJ have also recognized the need for the THC detection technology. For example, last year the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) under the U.S. Department of Commerce planned a workshop aimed at facilitating “an open and candid discussion” about the development and implementation of device to test a person’s breath for marijuana impairment.

In 2023, a federally funded report by researchers at NIST and the University of Colorado Boulder concluded that evidence does “not support the idea that detecting THC in breath as a single measurement could reliably indicate recent cannabis use.”

A DOJ researcher in 2024, meanwhile, cast doubt on whether a person’s THC levels are even a reliable indicator of impairment, saying states may need to “get away from that idea.”

That issue was also examined in a federally funded study in 2024 that identified two different methods of more accurately testing for recent THC use that accounts for the fact that metabolites of the cannabinoid can stay present in a person’s system for weeks or months after consumption.

Also that year, researchers behind a federally funded study said they’d developed new procedures to enhance the selectivity of a popular forensic testing method, allowing better detection of delta-9 THC and its metabolites in blood.

A study published in 2019 concluded that those who drive at the legal THC limit—which is typically between two to five nanograms of THC per milliliter of blood—were not statistically more likely to be involved in an accident compared to people who haven’t used marijuana.

Separately, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) in 2019 determined that while “marijuana consumption can affect a person’s response times and motor performance … studies of the impact of marijuana consumption on a driver’s risk of being involved in a crash have produced conflicting results, with some studies finding little or no increased risk of a crash from marijuana usage.”

In a report in 2024, NHTSA said there’s “relatively little research” backing the idea that THC concentration in the blood can be used to determine impairment, again calling into question laws in several states that set “per se” limits for cannabinoid metabolites.

“Several states have determined legal per se definitions of cannabis impairment, but relatively little research supports their relationship to crash risk,” that report said. “Unlike the research consensus that establishes a clear correlation between [blood alcohol content] and crash risk, drug concentration in blood does not correlate to driving impairment.”

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