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Drug testing welfare recipients

Looks like Florida's program to drug test welfare recipients will save the state $40thousand to $98thousand a year, not including cost of administering the program, at a cost of only $178million. tbo.com

This has nothing to do with Florida governor Rick Scott's shadow-ownership of the major drug testing company in Florida.

Republicans are against government intrusion into people's private lives. This is not an intrusion into anyone's private life, either.

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Permalink Reply by Ava Wilson on September 25, 2011 at 12:59am

What's funny about this is that it's so utterly absurd. Most people who undergo these drug tests applying for state aid pass them as drug-free. It's such a gigantic waste of money to catch a tiny percentage of Welfare users, it's based on a very incorrect and biased stereotype that everyone applying for Welfare is a lowlife drug addict, and that's simply not the case.

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Permalink Reply by Daniel W on September 25, 2011 at 9:31am

What's funny about this is that it's so utterly absurd.

That was really my thought too. It's been interesting to watch as this discussion, which I thought was about the hypocricy and corruption of a republican governor, supposedly small-govt oriented, started this really huge siphoning of public funds to a private company that he started and apparently can still profit from, in order to catch a really tiny number of drug users who you can't even say spent their welfare dollars on their drugs. Even sitting in a room where someone else is smoking pot can result in a positive test, or their drug intake could be a toke off their friend's joint. They are guilty without a chance to prove themselves innocent. The idea of welfare is so hot, and so resented, it keeps devolving into a discussion of whether welfare recipients are worthy. Meanwhile, many people seem to let the governor off without a lot of criticism. Like I say, it's interesting to watch.

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Permalink Reply by Squirrel on September 25, 2011 at 9:15am

Oh, let's target some random group. How about this new law:

"Everyone buying a gun has to take a drug test."

Because we don't want druggies to have guns, right?

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Permalink Reply by TK on September 28, 2011 at 7:21pm

Would that drug test to own a gun include legal pain meds, alcohol, and tobacco? Or how about caffeine, or antihistamines? How about chocolate, as it changes your brain chemistry too?