mandatory drug testing for welfare.

[jackfaire]

How do we give the welfare community hope of a better tomorrow? I would much rather see the money go to answering those questions than to testing someone that is already lost and doesn't want to be rehabilitated.

Steve B.

Simple we fix the adults. We drug test. We put them in treatment and we save everyone we can. We help them get cleaned up off of the drugs so that when they used the employment programs we have already set up for them they get the jobs and get back on their feet instead of failing that drug test, you know the one potential employers give.

Saying things like, Lets save the children, throw money at the children, fix the eduactional system.

I don't think there is now or ever an educational system that won't have kids skipping school to go down to the old fishing hole.

The biggest block with education is that we get kids who don't think the education matters. You can throw money at a child all you want but if his life experience is that no one gives a shit about the poor (his parents) he isn't going to believe you care about him.

You want to save the children then save their parents show them that we do actually care about people and we aren't just saying, "Screw them" and then trying to rush in and play hero to kids with half assed rhetoric before sending them home from school to their poor home where shopping for holy jeans at Goodwill is a necessity not a choice.

I saw the system help my mom and dad. I saw it feed us and give us a shot at life. I saw them help us get medical care and take care of my family.

If my dad had a drug problem we wouldn't have made it. He wouldn't have gone back to school he wouldn't have moved us from a small apartment in a small town where my old friends are now crackheads to the nice house I lived in while graduating highschool.

If they had told my dad to screw off and just threw money at us kids I would be bitter and cynical of the system.

Uhm yeah so uhm yeah *steps off his soapbox*

[Imprl59]

The conservative side of me says test welfare recipients and throw them off welfare if they continue to fail test.

But the realistic side doesn't agree. These people aren't going to simply evaporate if you take away the welfare checks. They will be homeless, addicted to drugs and have nothing to lose.

Drug treatment you say? Let's be realistic. If you take a well educated financially stable person with a good support system who want to get better and put them in rehab the recidivism rate is crazy. If you take another person who has no support system and nothing to look forward to what are the chances rehab is going to work for them? Why the heck would someone want to stop smoking pot when the only thing they have to forward to is poverty?

I think that instead of putting our limited resources in to fixing the broken people we should instead put them in to fixing the children before they can become broken too. How do we fix the education system so that we don't have kids graduating who can't read? How do we fix the mentality that having ten kids by ten women and not supporting any of them is cool? How do we give the welfare community hope of a better tomorrow? I would much rather see the money go to answering those questions than to testing someone that is already lost and doesn't want to be rehabilitated.

Steve B.

[NodmiTheSellout]

I'm not saying to keep giving people welfare AFTER attempting to help them and they refuse to be helped. I'm saying, don't just test someone, get a positive, and kick them off, without offering help. Because yeah, there's no reason to support the drug habit of someone who refuses to work with the assistance being given them.

[jackfaire]

These people will also fake out pee tests. There are plenty of ways to do that. Tests that are harder to fake out are also significantly more expensive.

Welfare workers can't solve any problem, but they solve more problems than "test 'em and toss 'em" can.

I am not advocating test them and toss them personally I am advocating they be forced into treatment. And no someone who is on welfare who is using it to fund their drug problem is not being helped.

[Plaidman]

And an easy way not to be tossed?

DON'T FUCKING USE WELFARE FOR DRUGS!

Omg! What a concept! Don't use money that is meant to help you get back on your feet, pay your rent, put food on your table, help your kids, for illegal substances.

If you cannot get off drugs, despite welfare /trying/ to help them, you really belive it's best to just keep giving them money to buy more drugs because they'll turn to crime? They're already turned to crime by doing drugs.

You do know there is not an infinite amount of money to give out, right? There are thousands of people that need to get on welfare, but they are turned down for whatever reason. Hell, when I was homeless and living on the street stealing from dumpsters to eat, I was told I made too much money. I've seen others in worst conditions trying to get something to eat, and they get turned down because there isn't money to use for them.

But hey, to you, that's ok. Because the drug people get more money to pay for their drug fuel, because they're people that need help.

Other people need help, but you choose to ignore them.

What's the better person to give welfare to? The scum asswhipe that uses welfare to feed his drug habit, or the person who lost his job, home, got a divorce, and is trying to get his foot in the door and survive? He'd pay taxes most of their lives, they never done any major crimes, yet hey, no welfare for that person. Lets give that druggy welfare scum bucket more money to pay for his mounting drug abuse problem! Because it's just cheaper to do that rather then help the person who wouldn't abuse the system, seeing as having more people on welfare means more jobs to keep up. If no one is on welfare, no-one would have that job. Yay to helping cheaters!

[NodmiTheSellout]

Workers are not mind readers, nor are they lie detectors. Expert scum will lie and trick the welfare people.

These people will also fake out pee tests. There are plenty of ways to do that. Tests that are harder to fake out are also significantly more expensive.

Welfare workers can't solve any problem, but they solve more problems than "test 'em and toss 'em" can.

[Plaidman]

There are lots of reasons why Welfare workers could help. There are also lots of reasons they don't.

Prime reason that several don't care. When your backup with thousands of people that need that assistance, your going to have to hire people just to keep up. There no proof that every worker will do everything in their power to help. There have been stories of welfare workers and offices being swamp with calls to help someone, and they ignore it, or when they do go to check, they just take a glance and leave. Two stories come to mind, one of the latest rescue stories had a woman that was kidnap as a child and repeatedly raped. She was held in the backyard tied up and such. The person doing the raping was on welfare. Welfare saw said lady being tied up, and belived the person when he said it was just a game.

Another one, was a foster child. Everyone in the neighborhood was yelling and screaming at the office that she was being abused. She had marks on her all the time. Eventally the foster dad murderered her for fun. The welfare admits yeah, they got calls. They claim they did checks.

Workers are not mind readers, nor are they lie detectors. Expert scum will lie and trick the welfare people. They can claim they're doing drug rehab. They may even have papers saying they show up. Doesn't prove that they haven't quit doing drugs, nor are they using the welfare to buy more drugs.

Workers are also bribeable. They don't make alot of money. The job is definitly for the helping others part. But some (and there been news stories of people being busted, but only after years of bribes). They do it for money. They do it for free drugs from the welfare people themselves. One let a couple get tons of welfare, by lying and helping them, to have sex with their 16 year old daughter.

Your acting like welfare workers can help and solve any problem. Just like the welfare cheating scum, there are welfare people who just don't give a damn ether, and just give out money, be it they just don't want to do work, or that they hate goverment and want them to lose money, that they think it's funny, or in some cases, praying and hoping said drug user just OD's and dies so it's one less case.

[jackfaire]

Using both would just be a waste of money.

Why? Part of receiving welfare should be about getting you to the most functional you can be. This for drug addicts should include treatment done with addictions counselors and social workers.

Counseling them is useless if they are still using because then you only have their word for it that they are not using anymore. This is not effective and is a drain on resources.

Welfare is meant to help people recover not to give a free ride to people.

If a teacher believes a student did his homework and the dog ate it and gives him an A because he tells her it was just that good we would be up in arms about how unfair that is to the other students who work to get ahead and who are held to standards.

I agree we need to hold people in need to the same standards that the rest of us are held to. I occasionally need public assistance and I use it to get back on my feet not to prop them up on the furniture.

[NodmiTheSellout]

OK. . .I'm not saying those people don't exist. But, saying "DRUG TESTS!!" in favor of social workers throws out the people who could be helped, as well as those who refuse to be. Using both would just be a waste of money.

[jackfaire]

I don't think it's a lack of compassion it's a lack of wanting to feed drug addicts who don't want to be anything else.

There are addicts that do well in the system they get clean they get a home and so on. Then there are the addicts who love doing drugs.

They don't want a home or a job or anything else but they will take our money so us "suckers' can keep paying them to spend their lives however they wish.

There should be policies in place to weed out those that are just working the system so that they can be supported by the rest of us. You can tell when someone truly wants to get better and when someone just doesn't care.

[NodmiTheSellout]

I just. . .don't get the utter lack of compassion, here. Or the failure to acknowledge that compassionate policies WORK BETTER than "tough love" or whatever the hell you want to call the "misbehaving? FUCK 'EM!" policies like this would be.

OK. Welfare is supposed to support those disadvantaged by various forces. For whatever reason, they can't find work, or can't find work that supports them. Falling into drug addiction may be one of these reasons. I am not saying that it is the job of the government to pay for an addict's drugs. But, if someone's an addict, with no financial means, with no emotional support, etc. etc.. . .what fucking good would cutting off their ability to live in a home, buy food, etc., do? They'd either die, or turn to dealing drugs themselves, thievery, etc., to support themselves as well as their habit. Drug addicts are human beings, who can contribute to the world, they're not. . .creatures to be exterminated. Not every drug addict is the shitty example given in this thread, and addiction changes people in horrible ways, even so. Drug addicts need HELP, not to be thrown away for failing a piss test.

As for the costs. . .one test may be minimal. Multiple tests, on the huge number of people applying for welfare? Not so much. This isn't something I've pulled out of my ass--states who've considered this and not implimented this have drawn that conclusion. Not to mention that the cheapness of the tests you're assuming is the cheapness of initial tests, which are only cheap if they are negative. Get a positive result, and have fun with all the backlash when someone's livelihood is reduced down to what their pee does to a pH strip, because doing follow-up tests to ascertain the validity of the results is too expensive.

I just don't understand why people are so fixated on a piss test instead of a social worker, when the social worker is cheaper, more effective, and more compassionate (as a general rule anyway; humans at least have the capacity to want to help fellow humans, which isn't true of a test result).

[Greenday]

Follow the rules and you get X, don’t and you’re out on your own. I’ve got to do it myself for my own job, why shouldn’t welfare recipients?

Sounds like parole. I like it.

[NodmiTheSellout]

Except harshness is the rule behind most drug policy already in effect and, well, you see how well that's working, don't you?

[KitterCat]

Originally Posted by daleduke17
Welfare is the same as at-will employment. You voluntarily apply for it, get approved (hired) and then stay on it for as long as you deem needed.

NodmiTheSellout
The courts don't see it that way.

The courts seem to see it that way only because they haven’t figured out loophole to legally justify it. Such as what they’ve done with drunk driving stops, or suspicious activity searches. Heck watch an episode of cops, those guys will/can search your car even if you don’t give consent. So long as they can give a reason in court to look they will. Why people who have willingly gone onto the government hand out cant be forced to do something as simple as a drug test shouldn’t be an issue.

As for how much it costs. I cant vouch for every lab, but my Hubbie works for a major lab that does drug screens as well as blood work. Cost is about $25. They actually lose money in the time it takes to do them verses what they‘d be paid for blood work. Since everything is picked up at the same time, by the same couriers you don’t have to worry about transport cost. Urinalysis test are the standard since it’s the cheapest ($25). Blood tests are a bit more pricey at around $100 and its almost impossible to find anyone who wants/or is willing to run a hair follicle test around $1500. Actual lab work on a urinalysis is pretty easy. The same dip test you buy in a head shop is what they use in the lab. If you can read the little line that appears your ok. About the only legal part is making sure there’s a form of custody going with the sample.

You point out that Less people working = less tax money. If the people who are on welfare cant abide by a simple rule of staying off drugs why are we giving them part of that tax money? It may be cruel, but maybe a bit of harshness is what some of them need. Follow the rules and you get X, don’t and you’re out on your own. I’ve got to do it myself for my own job, why shouldn’t welfare recipients?

[NodmiTheSellout]

Welfare is the same as at-will employment. You voluntarily apply for it, get approved (hired) and then stay on it for as long as you deem needed.

The courts don't see it that way.

So, why not make the people pass a drug test? State employees have to. Welfare recipients are basically state employees as they receive money from the government. So, drug test them. Give them three strikes.

[...]

State saves money, taxpayers save money (in theory), and help clean areas up.

Because it's unnecessary, and your conclusion is false. Not only is it unconstitutional to test everyone, it is expensive. People need to be paid to administer the test, other people need to be paid to transport, other people need to be paid to do the actual lab work, etc. etc.. There's a lot of expense in administering tests, and there are a lot of people applying for welfare, particularly in this economy. So, less people working = less tax money, and also = more demand for public assistance. Again--meetings with actual people are cheaper and are likely just as, if not more, effective, because they can put compassion into the equation, and address problems other than drug use (which may be linked to it).