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Want to go on welfare? Just say no to drugs
Topic Started: Mar 26 2009, 12:20 AM (165 Views)
XNavyGunner
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Gunner

Lawmakers in at least eight states want recipients of food stamps, unemployment benefits or welfare to submit to random drug testing.

The effort comes as more Americans turn to these safety nets to ride out the recession. Poverty and civil liberties advocates fear the strategy could backfire, discouraging some people from seeking financial aid and making already desperate situations worse.

Those in favor of the drug tests say they are motivated out of a concern for their constituents' health and ability to put themselves on more solid financial footing once the economy rebounds. But proponents concede they also want to send a message: you don't get something for nothing.

'Nobody's being forced'
"Nobody's being forced into these assistance programs," said Craig Blair, a Republican in the West Viginia Legislature who has created a Web site — notwithmytaxdollars.com — that bears a bobble-headed likeness of himself advocating this position. "If so many jobs require random drug tests these days, why not these benefits?"

Blair is proposing the most comprehensive measure in the country, as it would apply to anyone applying for food stamps, unemployment compensation or the federal programs usually known as "welfare": Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Women, Infants and Children.

Lawmakers in other states are offering similar, but more modest proposals.

On Wednesday, the Kansas House of Representatives approved a measure mandating drug testing for the 14,000 or so people getting cash assistance from the state, which now goes before the state senate. In February, the Oklahoma Senate unanimously passed a measure that would require drug testing as a condition of receiving TANF benefits, and similar bills have been introduced in Missouri and Hawaii. A Florida senator has proposed a bill linking unemployment compensation to drug testing, and a member of Minnesota's House of Representatives has a bill requiring drug tests of people who get public assistance under a state program there.

A January attempt in the Arizona Senate to establish such a law failed.

Crisis adds pressure to budgets
In the past, such efforts have been stymied by legal and cost concerns, said Christine Nelson, a program manager with the National Conference of State Legislatures. But states' bigger fiscal crises, and the surging demand for public assistance, could change that.

"It's an example of where you could cut costs at the expense of a segment of society that's least able to defend themselves," said Frank Crabtree, executive director of the West Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Drug testing is not the only restriction envisioned for people receiving public assistance: a bill in the Tennessee Legislature would cap lottery winnings for recipients at $600.

There seems to be no coordinated move around the country to push these bills, and similar proposals have arisen periodically since federal welfare reform in the 1990s. But the appearance of a cluster of such proposals in the midst of the recession shows lawmakers are newly engaged about who is getting public assistance.

Particularly troubling to some policy analysts is the drive to drug test people collecting unemployment insurance, whose numbers nationwide now exceed 5.4 million, the highest total on records dating back to 1967.

"It doesn't seem like the kind of thing to bring up during a recession," said Ron Haskins, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "People who are unemployed, who have lost their job, that's a sympathetic group. Americans are tuned into that, because they're worried they'll be next."

Indeed, these proposals are coming at a time when more Americans find themselves in need of public assistance.

Soaring unemployment claims
Although the number of TANF recipients has stayed relatively stable at 3.8 million in the last year, claims for unemployment benefits and food stamps have soared.

In December, more than 31.7 million Americans were receiving food stamp benefits, compared with 27.5 million the year before.

The link between public assistance and drug testing stems from the Congressional overhaul of welfare in the 1990s, which allowed states to implement drug testing as a condition of receiving help.

But a federal court struck down a Michigan law that would have allowed for "random, suspicionless" testing, saying it violated the 4th Amendment's protections against unreasonable search and seizure, said Liz Schott, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

At least six states — Indiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Wisconsin and Virginia — tie eligibility for some public assistance to drug testing for convicted felons or parolees, according to the NCSL.

Nelson said programs that screen welfare applicants by assigning them to case workers for interviews have shown some success without the need for drug tests. These alternative measures offer treatment, but can also threaten future benefits if drug problems persist, she said.

They also cost less than the $400 or so needed for tests that can catch a sufficient range of illegal drugs, and rule out false positive results with a follow-up test, she said.

Source

Sounds like an idea whose time has come.
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Mystical
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This country is looking more downtrodden every day. why would someone have to get a drug test if they sign up for unemployment compensation? The money that the employee recieves is because of their loss of a job. While I don't think it should be easy to get on welfare this just seems crazy. I'm starting to feel like a rat in a habitrail....

Not real sure this is a way to fix anything. Drug testing is just going to make the health insurance companies more rich. They already go over the doctor or specialist head and make the rules for everything. If someone needs an operation and a specialist or doctor tells that person..then it's a fight with the health insurance company to receive that surgery and make sure it is all covered...there are hidden fees everywhere.

Vicious cycle yep a rat in a habitrail.
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Max
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Pickle barrel, pickle barrel, Kumquat!
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Politicians should have to take a Brain Test before proposing dipstick regulations. Most of these morons couldn't find Waldo,and they think they are policy experts? Like Myst said-their masters in the Health Care Lobby just found another revenue stream.
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LarryOldtimer
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Just more madness following Nixon's war on college students. What fools so many are.
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Deleted User
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Pot shouldn't be illegal to begin with. The "war on drugs" is a joke.
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StrmySummer
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Storm Goddess

i dunno, i think this is a good idea. i know around here they get all this money and don't do with it what it's meant to do. i used to work in a grocery store and you could almost always tell who had food stamps (mind you there are those smart ppl that stretch them as far as they will go).....most of them would buy all name brand stuff and steaks, etc.....and pay for that with the food stamps and buy beer with their cash....and when they'd pull the cash out it would be a great big whoopin stack of it.....it always just baffled me. i mean, i was on foodstamps for awhile both when i was little and then after i bought my first place and was workin minimum wage tryin to pay bills and i bought store brand stuff like mac and cheese and ramen noodles.....i mean, i think if we as the taxpayer are gonna support these ppl they shouldn't be drinkin beer or doin drugs.....IMO
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Max
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Pickle barrel, pickle barrel, Kumquat!
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Stormy-it's not that I disagree with you,but it offends me that politicians who are by definition parasites on the taxpayer,are always coming up with this stuff. We were on Food Stamps when I was little,after my Dad had his heart attack. We had to jump through hoops to get them,and then people treated my Mom like crap when she bought a cake mix for my 4th Birthday. I say we cut all politician's salaries to-ZERO-and use that money to help the disadvantaged.

I agree with you guys-legalize drugs,cripple the Cartels and destroy the dealers,then we could spend the cash on useful programs.
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StrmySummer
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well, i know around here, there are always a lot of poorer ppl.....it was just somethin most ppl know around here....but would make me sick to see someone getting help that really didn't use it as intended and wasted what they did get so they could " party" and didn't use it to it's best advantage, then the ones that really need it, don't get it. i can't agree with legalizing drugs.....i've never done any drugs (don't judge anyone that has done them) i've just never felt the need or want to even try anything other than a drink of alcohol here and there......and have never been drunk. i don't think we should say.....oh, by the way, the drugs are legal now.....go ahead do whatever you want. although, i can see somewhat that if they were legal it would take some of the mystic away from it.....but just not something i agree with....again.....just my opinion
Edited by StrmySummer, Mar 26 2009, 12:36 PM.
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Max
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Well,the main thing about legalizing drugs (I've never done anything harder than Bourbon,but I've been drunk a few times) is it would take all the huge profit out of it.

I personally think a lot of the chic-ness (is that a word? :p) would go out of drugs if they were legal.
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LarryOldtimer
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I've never done illegal drugs at all, either. But I have known a good many who have smoked marijuana, and they were almost all quite nice people. The great majority of those I knew certainly never went on to use the "harder" drugs. There are some illnesses for which marijuana is the treatment which really works the best.

There are lots of people doing that which I wouldn't approve of, and which I certainly wouldn't do myself. But then, I smoke which a lot of people don't want and want to get rid of. There were the anti-alcohol fanatics who did get prohibition passed . . . a Constitutional amendment even (as government didn't have the power to control alcohol, and people played within the rules of the Constitution more back then). Prohibition proved to be a complete disaster, and furnished heaps of money on organized crime.

Just as prohibition of these drugs has heaped huge amounts of money on the "drug cartels" and gangs. And as with alcohol prohibition, a goodly amount of these huge sums of money has been used to corrupt politicians and people in law enforcement.

Freedom really means that the other person can do as the other person wants, even if you personally don't approve of it.
When a great majority of people agree on what the laws should be, a great majority follow the law. The fewer the number who agree, the fewer there are who follow the law.

We and our own politicians are building up the forces which are against our own society, and which just might well destroy it. We will reap what we sow.

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