Drug testing welfare recipients is the flavor of the month
among reality-challenged governors, who are, of course, mostly Republicans.
There are 12 states that currently carry out this demeaning and degrading
procedure, and another 12 are considering implementation. Florida, which had a
drug-testing requirement for people on welfare, was forced to shut it down
after four months by a federal judge. Of the 4,086 people tested during that
period, 2.6% tested positive. That’s fewer than 10 people.
Assuming that people on welfare are more likely to use drugs
than others is just one extension of the conservative belief that if you are in
need of welfare from the state, there’s something wrong with you. People on
welfare, goes the thinking, are inherently lazy losers who are simply looking
for a handout from the government. They are subhuman, and therefore we can do
things to them that we wouldn’t consider doing to others. There aren’t any serious
proposals out there to drug test political candidates.
Drug testing is not just insulting and demeaning, it also
flies in the face of American jurisprudence, the foundation of which is that a
person is innocent until proven guilty. Conservatives want welfare recipients
to prove their innocence before receiving aid. And how can we look ourselves in
the mirror and punish the already down and out for using drugs when they point
to George Bush or Barack Obama or any of a number of other successful individuals
who have admitted using drugs?
Forcing welfare recipients to undergo drug tests is just one
more in a very long line of bad ideas from conservatives. Hopefully, court
challenges like the one in Florida will work to end this practice nationwide in
the near future.
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