Tom LoBianco, writing for the Associated Press, is reporting that Sen. Jean Leising of Oldenburg and Rep. Heath VanNatter of Kokomo intend to introduce legislation requiring welfare recipients to submit to drug tests and pass them as a condition of receiving benefits.
I might be able to get behind this if it’s accompanied by an amendment requiring legislators to pass a breathalyzer test before casting votes. A lot of the evening votes would fail for a lack of a quorum, and a handful of legislators would never be able to cast a vote.
According to Leising and VanNater:
They say Hoosiers scrapping for paychecks shouldn’t have to pay welfare costs of drug abusers.
Their rationale, however, is negated by the experience of Florida with such a law where 96% of applicants pass the test, 2% fail, and 2% refuse to take the test.
So, you invade the privacy of people with the bad sense to be poor only to catch the 2% of that population who are abusing drugs and drive away another 2% who may or may not be for savings that are minimal, at best; most likely a wash; and which might end up being a loss once you get the drug users out of the system.
And then there is the small point that children of drug users should probably be allowed to eat and get health care even though they showed poor judgment when choosing their parents. At some point, lawmakers are going to have to come to terms with the fact morality plays shouldn’t be confused for sound legislation.
AMEN
Perhaps all of us who receive property tax exemptions/deductions should also be tested, to make sure that the dopers among us aren’t benefitting tax breaks.
We should have no problem with paternalism for those on public assistance. Whether it be community service requirements, or drug testing, or attendance requirements for their kids, or really just about anything whatsoever, requirements that mandate mainstream behavior are in the long term interests of those on assistance.
Is a 2% failure rate low? You’d have to think that some people stopped their drug use in response to the requirement. What’s the drug use rate in the larger society?
Now that Newt is back in the news, go back and look at his infamous orphanage comment. It was precisely in response to a comment like Doug’s “the children shouldn’t suffer for the sins of the parents”.
I remember hearing a panel discussion on social services, where a woman described a period during her childhood when the family was on “assistance”. Can’t remember when exactly, but I think she was talking about the time just at the end of the depression or right after that. Anyway, it was a degrading experience for her. The family was subject to periodic visits by inspectors who would rate things like the cleanliness of the house and even the manners of the children, before approving the next dole. The mother had to show an account for how she had spent every penny of the previous payment. And they were in the wrong if any of it had been used to provide a child an ice cream cone. She recalled being humiliated by the “moralistic” tone of the visits. But it seems to me that private charity then could have been just as moralistic. Maybe some still are.
I wonder if this woman’s story was more of an urban experience. My mother’s family was probably “poor” in the ’30s, but lived in a rural area, so were able to keep themselves fed by means of a large garden and the ability to raise chickens, chop wood, etc. And they bartered with their neighbors, and helped the ones who were even worse off than they were.
I’m all for drug testing if we’re talking about EVERYONE that lives off the government dole: politicians, elected and appointed officials, registered lobbyists, government contractors (especially lawyers), businesses who get tax breaks/incentives and hell, even students who get grants and loans.
But if we’re only targeting the poor, then I think that’s just a way to demonize them, and it’ll become the new Republican boogie man to rev up the base in 2012.
I was randomly drug tested on Tuesday. It’s a condition of my employment.
There are stories about my workplace during the ’70s, pretty much everybody was smoking weed. They started drug testing in the ’80s, and guys actually thought that the company couldn’t regulate what they did on their own time, and kept right on smoking weed. They were all fired, and the union has never successfully gotten anyone fired for failing a drug test rehired.
Maybe that’s why I have a different view on this than Doug. Doesn’t seem like that big a deal.
More than anything else, it’s just arbitrary here. Why not make farmers getting subsidies take a drug test or prove they aren’t drinking while they farm?
At your workplace, I presume there was some concern about either improving functionality or limiting liability and it wasn’t some abstract concern about morality.
I’m a union lawyer who’s handled several drug discharge cases in arbitration. Almost without exception I’ve been successful in getting discharges overturned where they were based entirely on a positive urinalysis and there was no other evidence of on-the-job impairment.
One other point: were this mean-spirited bill ever to become law, it almost certainly would be struck down as an unreasonable search under the 4th amendment.
Unless you both (a) work for the government, and (b) are entitled by law to your job, it’s not really a valid comparison.
It’s sad to see the conservative war on Christianity continue like this.
Buzzcut, so being forced to prove your not guilty is “no big deal?” That couldn’t be more un-American.
I think you assume most employees have to do what you do. That’s not the case at all. The number of employees who have to take routine drug tests is relatively small.
And we’re not talking about one test. Because of a large number of false positives in any test, there has to be a second test. Maybe even a third. And who is going to pay for these expensive tests? We taxpayers. All for catching a tiny percent of the people.
Paul is exactly correct. The TANF receipients in Florida paid the intitial cost, but the state reimbursed them once they passed.
and this creates jobs how, exactly?
and so lets drug test teachers, principals, administrators, cops, firefighters, doctors, nurses, lawyers, etc.
And especially politicians? because WTF are THEY smoking? ( and pass some to me. lol!)
and bankers, because they must be high to mess up the economy.
drug test anybody who receives an y pennyes from any level of govt, especially the rich. anddrug test ( hiar follicle) to anybody applying for a business license, small business people, drivers licenses, building permits( they might fall off a roof, or think they can fly?)
when does all this insanity stop? besides- welfare recipients dont have money to buy drugs. ditto the unemployed, because if they were self employed independent pharmaceutical sales reps( drug dealers. giggle) they would be rich, driving a nice car, and living like tony montana.. – self employed, without govt regulations, taxes, govt, etc. ( until they get ratted out,and busted..)
except for the ones in aboite… pine valey, cherry hill, and other notoriously gated communities( in FTW) GEist reservoir anybody?
happy holidays to you and yours ( only if you pass a piss test..) giggle!
but serously- al this drug testing the unemployed creates jobs how exactly?
Better include Alcohol testing right after lunch on all politicians and bankers.
Fire the ones who fail. that will create alot of jobs
While I believe that drug-testing those on welfare is a poor idea, the comparisons between drug-testing welfare recipients and those that work for a living (both private and public sector) are completely misguided.
The idea behind the bad, paternalistic proposal is that we want to make sure that welfare recipients are not wasting money on drugs. While the state has the limited right to do so when providing something for nothing, the state does not, and should not, tell people how to spend their earned money.
As a side note, I really hope the suggestion that our elected office-holders sometimes vote while under the influence is greatly exaggerated. If I am wrong, please don’t tell me otherwise. I really hope to continue being naive on that subject, as ignorance is bliss.
But those who work for a living may well require government subsidies because, for all we know, they (or at least 2% of them) are wasting their money on and impairing their productivity with drugs or alcohol.
If they are, they aren’t impairing their productivity enough to stop them from holding down a job….
I would want to know that my auto mechanic to be drug-free. Wouldn’t want the steering to fail or a tire to come off while I am on the highway. Oh, my airplane pilot, also, but I think that is already being done.
Mary: if that information is important to you, have you asked the repair shop if they screen their mechanics for drugs? What did they say?
mary: drug tests don’t work like breathalizers. they can’t determine whether you’re currently inebriated; only whether a certain chemical is present in your bloodstream, which could remain for days or weeks depending on the drug (long after the effects have worn off). your mechanic smoking a joint at home after work wouldn’t impair his ability to fix your car the next day.
Thanks for the info and opinions. This reminds me, I don’t want my granddaughter’s babysitter on drugs either.
I like the way you state your case. People don’t ask to be poor and one shouldn’t have to give a sample of bodily fluids in order to get social assistance. Where do we draw the line?
I don’t think that I’ve ever had a job where I at least had to pass a drug test in order to get it, if not keep it. Is that not the case with most jobs?
I would guess the logic in Florida is, “why should welfare folks get to stay at home and get high while you work?”
I can’t disagree with that, although Doug’s 2% argument is compelling, if true. At some point, cost-benefit has to be calculated.
For the record, I tried to look at the General Social Survey to get some idea as to how many people use drugs, without success.
I have worked for 5 different employers and have never been subjected to a drug test.
Same here, Paddy, never had a drug test to get or keep a job. Several had the option of giving one after an accident, but others had no provision for giving one even if they wanted to.
Drug testing for welfare is fair.
How is it unfair for our country to drug test someone that is in need of assistance. For the most part drug testing is done at any job you apply for. When you have a person that truly needs assistance they are more than likely going to just go ahead and show they are clean in order to receive it.
Talking about the cost of drug testing recipients, consider this. They are making people pay for their own drug testing and if they pass then the state reimburses the person if you fail you it is not reimbursed and you have the option of going to rehab. The children in the instances that their parents test hot are still able to receive aid through another family member that can pass a drug test.
As I’ve explained above, the comparison with job applications is absolutely nonsensical, because a job from your employer is not something you are legally entitled to. But you are legally entitled to assistance, and so requiring drug testing is an intrusion upon someone’s privacy, by the government (most employers are not the government), without a specific cause to suspect any drug use on the part of the person being tested, as a condition of receiving something which one is entitled under a right created by law to receive.
The “but you have to get drug testing for a job!” “argument” is merely a sign of a lack of critical thinking on the part of the person making it, because the relevant differences are so obvious that they’re impossible to miss. The only way such an argument can be taken seriously is if it is accompanied by an explanation of why those differences are in fact not relevant. I have yet to see this.
steelydanfan: One is legally entitled to the benefits only if they meet the qualifications of the program the government has established. If the qualifications are not met, then they are not entitled to the benefits. What’s being proposed here is that one of the qualifications be the passing of a drug test.
It doesn’t make sense to say that the proposed testing somehow unfairly interferes with a person being able to receive something they are legally entitled to without the testing when what is being debated is whether the testing should be one of the qualifications for the entitlement.
I don’t know how many of you people have actually recently applied for a job. While lots of companies put it somewhere in their papers that they retain the right to legally test you, there’s usually a whole host of regulations made by the company (and sometimes the state you reside in) on the process. Most of the time, it isn’t completely random because it isn’t cost effective to drug test everybody at once, or just random people. It’s only done in cases such as an on-the-job injury.
The implication, if not outright statement, that employers drug test applicants is astounding. Especially since even entry level jobs nowadays are getting hundreds of applications, and a manager/owner might interview 10 people. 10 drug tests, at the company’s expense, when everyone is concerned about keeping cost down, is a good chunk of change.
I’ve only been drug tested once, when I worked at a hospital handling the archiving of charts. And that was only after I was chosen for the job.
Matt: I think the comments you refer to above may not have been entirely precise. The typical procedure utilized by companies is to drug-test people they hire, not people that apply, or even people the company interviews. If the new hire fails, you go with the 2nd choice and hire (and drug-test) them.
The implication, if not outright statement, that employers drug test applicants is astounding.
You might be right. I might have overstated the situation, that all my drug tests were taken not upon application for the job, but after I crossed some hurdle in the application process. You are probably right, it would not be cost effective to drug test all applicants.
But does that really change the argument regarding drug testing welfare recipients? The fact is that every job that I can remember having other than paperboy required a drug test to get it.