Should people receiving UNEMPLOYMENT benefits or WELFARE be tested for Drugs?
 

Is it possible that someone who uses drugs can also be a RESPONSIBLE member of society?

It is entirely possible for someone who uses drugs can be a responsible member of society. In fact, you can argue some of the biggest druggies have made some of the biggest contributions to society. John Lennon comes to mind.

With that said, yes. I want people on unemployment and welfare to be drug tested. I don't want my tax dollars funding drugs for slackers.

When I was in the Marines.... They did a surprise drug test of my unit. Pretty much everyone failed it.

Should CEO & board members of corporations be drug tested if their business receives any federal assistance or subsidies?

This has been pushed by the right for years and in the 7 states where it's been implemented its been a money sucking failure showing that less than 1% of recipients in all states, but one, tested positive for drugs while the national average for drug use is 9.4%.

"The national drug use rate is 9.4 percent. In these states, however, the rate of positive drug tests to total welfare applicants ranges from 0.002 percent to 8.3 percent, but all except one have a rate below 1 percent."

What 7 States Discovered After Spending More Than $1 Million Drug Testing Welfare Recipients

That being said, I say give all new recipients, excluding parents, a couple months to be depressed do drugs party whatever, because for most, going on assistance is a huge negative life changing event. After the 2 months start regular drug testing. Parents on assistance should be tested right away, and consistently through.

We need expert opinion here, so let's all call brassmonkey in.

Yes.

We also need to test people's IQ's before we allow them to procreate. :2 cents:

the only way it makes sense is if the tests are random... even the most dysfunctional idiot will stay clean for a day or 2 if he knows his benefits will be cut off if he fails the drug test, so no shit that no one is failing those drug tests...

If they start drug testing im gonna fucking starve to death so I hope you're happy

I NEED THOSE OBAMADOLLARS MOTHERFUCKERS

Only drug test the white people on welfare.

What happened to the people who flunked?

Good point re random sampling

Also, there are all sorts of products available that NEUTRALIZE the tests

I think they got office hours or something similar. That is just a minor slap on the wrist - extra duty and a small fine.

Agreed. these cracked out honkies must be stopped

Definitely yes to testing, no more gravy train for Crockett.

I wonder how many of you here on GFY smoke crack.

Does that include being legally drugged up on pills?

Should the unemployed be allowed to not contribute anything in return for benefits? Far better question seeing the way the West is heading.

Well, they'lll sure drug test the hell out of you if you apply for any halfway decent job. So why the hell not drug test people who apply for unemployment and/or welfare benefits? If I can't take drugs to cope with the daily stress of my 9 to 5, they shouldn't be able to take drugs to cope with the burden of playing Xbox till 6am, 7 days per week.

And while they're at it, might as well test them for citizenship too.

should outsourcers be allowed to take their pension out of the country and spend the money abroad? :1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Was Rochard in the marines?

And if they are found to be on drugs, they get food stamps etc instead of cash

People seem to forget unemployment benefits arent welfare. Its something you pay for from your paycheck everytime you get paid.

In the US, they paid for those benefits it was taken from their check every week. Its a myth people are just living the good life on unemployment is beyond stupid. Here in my state the max is $275 a week and you have to be making over 50k to get that. So if you are used to making 50k and are getting $275 a week, you arent living the good life.

Unemployment.no,you are entitled to that benefit as you paid into it.Welfare yes,the taxpayers are paying for it

Unemployment, no.

Welfare (cash, food stamps, medical, corporate assistance and subsidies) yes... Randoms. No more free rides for these ghetto crackheads, backwoods methheads, the lazy type of stoners and the pompous drugged out big wigs. Fail, and you must complete program/rehab. Fail to complete program/rehab, no more benefits. Skip/avoid a random, no more benefits.

Obviously those with prescriptions for pharmaheroin and such should get an entire separate free ride from money paid for by the taxation of workers in the medical field until their prescriptions are up or are deemed permanently disabled or some shit. Medical work tax or something that pays for the free ride of those disabled via current prescription, call it pharmaceutically disabled assistance or whatever.

Just a 2 minute thought but seems I like it'll keep them from scamming welfare and lights a 🔥 under asses for cures and solutions instead of extended prescriptions for 💰.

if you are doing drugs:
a. you are unlikely to have enough energy/motivation/focus/etc to conduct a successful job search
b. you are unlikely to give off a good impression to potential employer while high/hungover/in withdrawal/etc
c. many companies drug test new hires, so even if you overcome a. / b. you won't get hired anyway

the objective of "unemployment benefits" is to give someone temporary support while they search for another job... but if you are doing drugs, you are far less likely to be successful, completely defeating the whole point of this government program...

Yes but not to ciminalize. Tested to be provided more help.

If they contribute more in taxes than they take out and their contribution was above the per capita average. Then fine. You'll find that a lot of unemployed never reached those standards.

YourState has it right.

However, there's more to doing work than getting a paycheck. Keeps people focussed, motivated and shows them giving back to society. Also looks great on a CV when people go for interviews.

You must be living in the past or not a country most of us know. Unemployment or a minimum wage job that hardly pays the bills, is fast becoming the norm for some people.

Other than being pissy about other people working less hard than oneself, why would anyone want to pay more in taxes, just to stop poor people from taking chemical comfort?

Everyone does understand that this has been tested and shown to cost more money, right?

it might be the "right" thing to do? drug testing identifies people that may have a drug problem and so help can be offered to them so they can become productive members of society again?

"cost more" is a bit misleading too...
1. testing is non-random, so it doesn't effectively identify drug users
2. how is "cost more" calculated anyway? short term it may cost more indeed, cause all the costs are up front... but the benefits are spread over many years...

isn't it pretty clear that someone who is unemployed, has a drug problem and has free $$ coming in each month will never get out of the hole he is in by himself? so isn't it the "right" thing to do to try to help him, not just to prevent him from leeching off the taxpayer for what likely will be rest of his life, but to just help the guy?

Just the testing system, when tried, cost much more than simply giving people their government benefits.

There is no discussion of rehab, just of denying benefits to people who fail a drug test.

Someone can fail a drug test without having a drug problem. I'm sure I regularly hire people who consume the occasional beer, joint, or line.

Occasional users will fail a drug test without needing help in that area.

In the UK, almost all homeless are white.

I don't think they bother with testing for anything.

^ Nationalist groups have cottoned onto the racial aspect of homelessness

You raise some great points. The whole point of cash assistance is to ASSIST and you raise a great point about taking ASSISTANCE to the next level. In other words, helping is just setting up a system and a process, it also means EXPECTING RESULTS / STANDARDS.

Welfare recipients should have to do community service work for the city/county/state to continue to get the benefits. Once they have to work for the money, maybe a decent percentage will decide its better to work a regular job for more money instead. And if not, at least the money is getting some production for the governments.

The govt. shouldn't be able to drug test anybody. Nobody should.

There is a 4th amendment to the Constitution...and I believe that any drug test, any breathalizer test, etc. is a direct violation of the constitution.

That's why you actually have a choice to take them or not.
Of course the govt. has figured out that they can penalize you for NOT taking them. So everybody falls in line and allows their work or govt. to take their blood (or you lose your job)...or take a breathalyzer when you get pulled over (or you go to jail).

So yeah, the govt. COULD require a drug test for welfare.

But all of the above "testing" is very much against the intentions of the Constitution.

How could there be any more drastic of an invasion of privacy than drug testing? :(

Our "freedom" isn't exactly Freedom. You are "free" to do whatever you like...unless religious fanatics disapprove. :(

One other thing...the epidemic of drug use these days is prescription opioids.
How the hell is "drug testing" for cocaine (which folks on welfare probably can't afford) and pot (also expensive as hell these days) having any effect on the REAL problem of prescription pills?

Trump disagrees with you and he's making mandatory drug testing federal law next week. So much for land of the free. Thanks Donald!

Trump to Sign Off on Expanding Drug Tests for the Unemployed

Obama restricted who states could drug test, limiting it only to those in professions that require drug testing as a condition of employment.

Trump is giving states the right to test everybody, or anyone the state chooses. So southern states could only test blacks in poor neighborhoods the same way they illegally tried to limit their voting rights until the court found it unconstitutional.

"The Senate on Tuesday sent President Donald Trump a measure to expand the number of applicants for jobless benefits who can be drug-tested.

The White House has said Trump will sign the measure into law as a cancellation of "unnecessary regulations.""

In most cases I agree but drug tests can be useful in some cases. My brother works in commercial construction. There are times when someone screwing up could seriously injure or kill people. I think the company has the right to know that their employees aren't coming to a dangerous work site high or drunk so they drug test when you are hired and then randomly throughout the year. If there is an accident on a site everyone on that site is tested immediately.

Neither Obama nor Trump can force anyone to drug test.
But our society has allowed federal, state, local govt.'s to penalize you if you don't. (lose your job or benefits).
Also we have (like a bunch of sheep) allowed insurance companies to dictate that businesses drug test people as well.

The whole thing is disgusting. And as I said (and you ignored in your anti-Trump hysteria)...what use is testing for pot and cocaine when the REAL problem is prescription drugs and addiction?

129 people a day die from an overdose. The overwhelming majority from prescription opioids.

Instead of drug testing people...we need to get educated on addiction and start treating it like the disease it is.

People partying by smoking a joint or doing a line aren't the problem in our society. It's the relatively small percentage of people who have that certain gene that causes addiction who are the ones who need help.
Those alcoholics and narcotic addicts are destroying their families and killing themselves and DO cost society a lot of money.

Drug testing for pot and coke has nothing to do with any of that.

I hear you.
And of course you don't want someone showing up to work on a construction site at 5 a.m. to be drunk or high.

But having said that...it's pretty easy to see when someone is fucked up. And they generally get fired real quick.
Testing them and firing them because they smoked a joint on the weekend and got tested on Tuesday is bullshit. And again...it shouldn't be allowed.

They have kind of tried to do a "one size fits all" approach (like the govt. always seems to do).

But real life isn't like that.

Yes, an alcoholic will drink all day long and pretty much be useless. He will be fired quickly enough because he will REEK of booze...and his productivity will be sucking.

Someone smoking a joint at their lunch break? What's the purpose? They will stink of pot and get fired.

Or doing a bump at work? Again...why would a normal human being do that in the middle of the day in the hot sun at work?

Having said that...an addict to prescription pills is a HUGE danger to everyone around them. And they aren't testing for that. And even if they did..."hey I have a prescription".

All that drug testing at workplaces is nothing more than a waste of time and money. AND...it controls people during their time off from work.

I've heard plenty of people say "No, I can't do that because they test me". And that's on a Friday night!
It's total bullshit that they can't have a good time and blow off some steam on the weekend because they might get "tested" the next week, and it will show positive for a long time after the actual useage.

The pain pills are the biggest problem, by far. Like you say, drinking, doing coke, weed etc on the job or right before the job, it's going to be pretty obvious. Part of the problem my brother faces is that they are in a union. If he suspects someone is high on the job he has to go through the union which drags its feet in order to protect the member. But that is a different problem altogether. The last three times there has been an accident on the job site where my brother was the person who caused it was high on prescription pain killers. They may have needed them because they had a bad back or whatever, and they had a prescription for them, but they never should have been on a construction site. Sadly, catching something like that is very hard to do.

If you are able to function normally, have a job, are able to support yourself, etc, then no one should care if you smoke a little weed or do a line or 2 of coke on the weekends...

... but the question in this thread is not that, it is: what if you can not support yourself? Should the taxpayer pay for someone's drug habit? Isn't helping someone with a destructive drug habit re-enter the workforce a no-brainer? and isn't first step to accomplishing that identifying those people through drug testing?

Identifying them and helping them are two different things.

From a moral standpoint, I have no problem drug testing people who are on welfare. However, I am opposed to doing something just for the sake of doing it and making a few people feel better if it isn't very effective. My understanding is that there are seven states that already drug test welfare recipients and in six of them the result is that less than 1% tested positive. Maybe doing a random drug test would yield higher results, maybe not. To me, the only reason to do this would be to help those people get off the drugs so I would say if someone on welfare tests positive for drugs they should immediately be put in rehab. If they don't want rehab or they don't want to work to get off drugs, fine, they just don't get welfare. If they want to try to make their lives better we should be willing to help them.

My understanding is that as it is now those on welfare that test positive are kicking off welfare. With a drug problem and no means of support you know how this story ends, with them in jail. We end up paying for them one way or another so we might as well try to help them make positive changes in their lives.

Yes you have a "CHOICE" to take them or not, but you have no "RIGHT" to drive under the Constitution, so the state "WILL" take your drivers license away for a certain amount of time. They consider driving a "PRIVILEGE" and the state can and "WILL" take that privilege away if you choose to not take a breathalyzer test after being stopped.

Your argument is really null & void because driving isn't granted under the US constitution. The sate can take your drivers license because you failed to live up to the contract of obeying the law. When you sign and accept your drivers license you are agreeing to a contract with the state to follow the laws of that state or any state you visit. You can then sit at home and play with guns all day because that's an actual right, but you won't be driving for at least 3 months or more depending on the state.. Here in FL it's 1 year automatic suspension the first time you refuse to take a test 18 months the 2nd.

The goal is for the state to keep as much of the money taken out of checks for unemployment insurance, and welfare, as possible.

From what I've read the goal isn't to identify drug addicts and pay them unemployment while the state pays for drug rehab & counselling.

No, they should be allowed to spend their money on whatever they wish. However they should not be receiving, enhanced benefits based on the fact they are a drug user/addict or other substance abuser, such as disability or incapacity benefits!

Whether they are considered responsible in the current format of "society" is irrelevant, everyone is born with an equal right to the earths resources, it's only the fact we have been brainwashed into believing only the privileged have the rights to such assets.

Within the current system, as opposed to what you're proposing, a reward benefit would be far more appropriate and motivational, giving those who are clean, stay out of trouble and make reasonable attempts to engage in the capitalist establishment model, a bonus above what Law states is the minimum needed to live off.

Society's fucked, manipulated, too many people believe what exists is a benefit or privilege.

Unemployment benefits? Don't we pay into that system and then get our own money back? So that is a no for me as why burden it further.
Welfare seems like it makes sense until you realize that the welfare rolls have been dropping for 30 years and is so close to zero it couldn't possible matter. But yeah we can debate a meaningless law like we always do on here.

By giving them community work the State gives them more purpose and self-worth. Removing some of the needs to take drugs. Not a 100% fix, better than nothing.

Very high unemployment is coming very soon. 33% of the adult population unemployed and living on meagre funds isn't the way to run a modern country.

It is my understanding that those on welfare have to have children in order to receive welfare benefits, so are you willing to let those that test positive for drugs, children to do without food, clothing, medical care etc.?

People that receive unemployment have paid for the unemployment insurance so you will deny them something that they have already paid for?