Drug Testing for welfare recipients
 

What say you?


http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090326/D975MFE80.html

States consider drug tests for welfare recipients
Mar 26, 7:32 AM (ET)
By TOM BREEN

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - Want government assistance? Just say no to drugs.
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.

Craig Blair: "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.

Sounds like a fine idea to me. Welfare is meant to be something to tie you over during bad times, not something to be a way of life. Taking drugs is going to hurt a person's ability to get back on her feet so it seems logical.

It's about damn time!!!!! And make them get on birth control or tie their tubes!!!

I know someone on welfare. She's had a few jobs and walked out.(fast food) She has a few. It's not our fault that you're lazy. Why should we have to pay for people like this?

We do offer low cost (<$5 ) or free birth control to people who are on Medicaid. Family planning is also offered to women who have given birth while on Medicaid. GYN visits, prescription for BC and sterilization options are offered. The father can also apply for family planning as well.

I agree in theory, but how would they be tested? If Mom tests positive for drugs and she is the head of household, does that mean the kids dont get benefits either? And if they slip up, then they lose their benefits and they end up on the street, doing what? If they are addicted, do they get help? (b/c according to policy, if you are in a residential facility for >30 days, you can't get any assistance.)

sexist....LOL :D

I oppose this measure, it will only make things worse for everyone in those communities, will add to the already sky-high costs of some of these programs, adding extra staff, etc.

Kevin, you have a good point, but I don't really think that adding more government programs on top of government programs that have already been "tweaked" by just about every congress since they began, will work to help fix said government programs. It just seems like more red tape that eventually people will find loopholes in/their way around.

I think the reason why I am 'for' it (altho I am interested in the details) is that i have personally have seen and dealt with clients and neighbors who had deep ties with drugs where if they weren't selling, they were using or whose kids were deeply involved as the drug trade was a supplemental income.

In some places, there are rules that more or less state that if a Section 8 residence has X amount of police calls due to drug activity, they can be evicted.

It'll save money on the one hand because you're right, folks will be turned away. On the other, it'll probably result in more crime and more homelessness as people aren't going to let themselves starve or go cold turkey.

It all depends on what you think welfare should be -- a hand up or a means to keep the poor fat dumb and happy. I think it should be the former. Further, I think this policy could really work if we were to adopt a Netherlands-style drug policy.

Kevin: I agree with you on the second part of your post. I say tax the drugs, make small dosages legal and keep it moving.

Welfare was supposed to be a temporary stop gap for families in between jobs. Somehow it morphed into this generational thing. The reform that occurred in 1996 attempted to stop that, to varying degrees of success. What it's supposed to be and what I see every day don't match up. :(

Do away with welfare. Problem solved.

Ain't happening...get over it.

I am all for the drug testing, but I am curious as to how many slack parents would rather stay on the drugs than feed/provide for their children...

I think that this could be pretty positive, just because less people would recieve aid. Perhaps it will help people in bad situations realize they need to get clean. If you're too far gone on crack, heroin, meth, then you're too far gone. Plain and simple. But its an incentive to get clean for a lot of people I should hope. I mean, the war on drugs what did it really do?

I do agree with a lot of comments.... how meny parents would give up drugs? But again, if you're too far gone/two selfish, you don't get any sympathy from me. And for that i'll pull the arugument, you can get tested so my taxes don't go toward your drug addiction.

If you need assistance for a few months, you make an effort, you cut back, stop going out to eat, and are activly looking for a new job, then i'll try to help, and i'm for you getting you aid. But again, i wont pay for your drug addiction.

Drug testing, I am for. Required contraception, I am very strongly against.

I find this incredibly annoying. Make who get on birth control? And of course because you know someone that makes all of "them" lazy.
Yup it was! ;):D
^ I agree. I think that it will just wind up being a waste of money. Money that could be put to much better use.