Not.
1 out
of 812 applicants tested positive for drugs in Tennessee.
One.
After
instituting dehumanizing drug-testing requirements to welfare recipients on
July 1, just one person tested positive. That means that just 0.12% of all
people applying for cash assistance in Tennessee have tested positive for
drugs, compared to the 8% who have reported using drugs in the past month among
the state's general population.
Now,
Tennessee, go test your state legislators and mayors and city councilmen and
judges and see how those numbers stack up.
In
Tennessee and other states, suspicions that welfare recipients are a bunch of
drug-addicted slackers were proven dead wrong.
(a nice graphic to put things in perspective)
In Utah, just 12 of 4,730 (0.25%) welfare applicants tested positive for drugs over the course of a year.
In
Florida, just 2.6% of applicants tested positive, costing the state much more
than it saved. The program was thrown out in court last December as a violation
of the Fourth Amendment.
In
Virginia, a similar drug testing program was scrapped after analysts found it
would cost $1.5 million to implement and save just $229,000 from un-disbursed benefits.
Maine’s
governor set out to prove welfare recipients in his state were using their
benefits to buy booze and cigarettes at bars and strip clubs, but turned up
nothing.
Requiring
people to pee in a cup for no reason other than being poor and in need of
assistance is demoralizing and won’t pass constitutional muster.
And
test results thus far only confirm what researchers already knew: Welfare
recipients are not rampant drug users, and most of those who do take drugs are
not addicts. Those who do have substance abuse problems mostly drink alcohol. It's a tired stereotype perpetuated by those who wish to further drive a wedge between the haves and the have-nots and is rooted in racism.
But
even if the tests were finding many more drug addicts, denying them benefits
would still be a cruel, stupid policy. It's the children of poor drug users who
stand to lose the most if the food stamps get cut.
Nevertheless,
last year, House Republicans voted to require states to drug test food stamp
applicants (in the same bill that also cut benefits by $40 billion, by the way).
I’ve
always thought it made a lot more sense to test members of Congress than
Welfare applicants. The taxpayer funded checks they cash are much bigger.
