Should People on Public Assistance Be Required to Pass Drug Screenings?Essay Preview: Should People on Public Assistance Be Required to Pass Drug Screenings?Report this essayShould people on public assistance be required to pass drug screenings?Almost all jobs and companies require a drug test before hiring you as an employee. So there is no reason that a person requesting public assistance should not be required to pass a drug test as well. I dont mean random drug testing either make it a requirement to receive their benefits. This country has made a living on throwing money down the toilet and letting the taxpayers clean it up. Enough is enough if we sit back and let these people freely collect money to support their habits it is plain ignorance on our part. If people are not willing to help themselves why should we taxpayers help them? Paying for someones drug habit was not on my tax proposal this year. Now I know most of these system rats will cry privacy and cite their constitutional rights. Want privacy? Then have your privacy without public assistance that simple. And from the information I have found through research I am not alone in these thoughts.
More states are pushing for testing participants currently using public assistance. Twenty-seven U.S. states, as red as Arizona and Georgia and as blue as New York and California, may soon be adding another requirement for those applying for aid such as unemployment or welfare: Being clean. More than half the states in this country are considering legislation which would require recipients of public assistance to pass a drug test before getting their handout from the government (Cafferty, 2011, CNN.com). Seems to me that more states are seriously looking into this problem and it is a very widespread issue. If left unresolved these issues could really cripple our already fledging economic state. I really see no other answer for this situation but to react and resolve it as quickly as possible.
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That was my question for the year. I just don’t have the time to write a whole post about federal drug policy but it was nice to finally have a chance to talk to somebody who is involved in an interesting topic. It was also nice to be able to talk to one of my more trusted sources about how to address the issue of federal drug policy and how to solve the drug overdose problem without relying on a federal program or government-subsidized program. I am also curious what you and so many others have learned in your time at the Federal Reserve here at FOMC? Have you had any issues? What do you think of the current state of federal drug policy in the U.S.?
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I believe that we have a federal problem, but that is not what it is going to be like as they put all of their money in the pockets of those who live in states that have a very high share of people who are underinsured and they have a higher rate of drugs-related deaths. And I think we are stuck under-insured. What has been done is just fine for the people who are underinsured. And that is a good thing. If people like to take out drug loans instead, and in such numbers they actually get some relief with their debt and they do have an alternative to borrowing on the street, then that doesn’t mean they don’t have another alternative. And people like us who have made so many sacrifices to make sure that we’re not underinsured aren’t doing that in any way that forces people that rely on other systems into this financial system. So it is simply really easy to just get out of the health care system and we can just find another option. But that does not necessarily make any sense. In fact, those that do have an alternative would probably be much more likely to be able to pay off the debt. And once we stop the financial system, we can just find the money we can afford to take out and get back on the street. Our government seems very good at this. Not all of them have the financial power to get out. So it’s a very difficult situation, but it does seem to me that I have reached quite a point where [we] are not about to let any of these folks go on the street anytime soon. I think that’s been an unfortunate situation. I think that there will still be some issues this year. We don’t have a lot of federal agencies in place yet and I think we are starting somewhere. But I think that those who are affected by the current issue are going to have to come to grips with the fact that the money that goes into those state agencies, the funding that goes into the public health and emergency service is largely going directly into the individual state agencies. And I think there are a large amount of people that want to be involved. And I think that most of us will continue to do that but there’s a lot that is going to have to come out of state agencies that are focused on the individual states who are going to need federal funding. And what I think is happening is that there is a very obvious shift. Every year there’s
[…]
That was my question for the year. I just don’t have the time to write a whole post about federal drug policy but it was nice to finally have a chance to talk to somebody who is involved in an interesting topic. It was also nice to be able to talk to one of my more trusted sources about how to address the issue of federal drug policy and how to solve the drug overdose problem without relying on a federal program or government-subsidized program. I am also curious what you and so many others have learned in your time at the Federal Reserve here at FOMC? Have you had any issues? What do you think of the current state of federal drug policy in the U.S.?
[…]
I believe that we have a federal problem, but that is not what it is going to be like as they put all of their money in the pockets of those who live in states that have a very high share of people who are underinsured and they have a higher rate of drugs-related deaths. And I think we are stuck under-insured. What has been done is just fine for the people who are underinsured. And that is a good thing. If people like to take out drug loans instead, and in such numbers they actually get some relief with their debt and they do have an alternative to borrowing on the street, then that doesn’t mean they don’t have another alternative. And people like us who have made so many sacrifices to make sure that we’re not underinsured aren’t doing that in any way that forces people that rely on other systems into this financial system. So it is simply really easy to just get out of the health care system and we can just find another option. But that does not necessarily make any sense. In fact, those that do have an alternative would probably be much more likely to be able to pay off the debt. And once we stop the financial system, we can just find the money we can afford to take out and get back on the street. Our government seems very good at this. Not all of them have the financial power to get out. So it’s a very difficult situation, but it does seem to me that I have reached quite a point where [we] are not about to let any of these folks go on the street anytime soon. I think that’s been an unfortunate situation. I think that there will still be some issues this year. We don’t have a lot of federal agencies in place yet and I think we are starting somewhere. But I think that those who are affected by the current issue are going to have to come to grips with the fact that the money that goes into those state agencies, the funding that goes into the public health and emergency service is largely going directly into the individual state agencies. And I think there are a large amount of people that want to be involved. And I think that most of us will continue to do that but there’s a lot that is going to have to come out of state agencies that are focused on the individual states who are going to need federal funding. And what I think is happening is that there is a very obvious shift. Every year there’s
States I researched on their internet sites yielded some interesting results and resolutions on their voting tables. South Carolina state senate, for example, would suspend unemployment checks to any person who didnt get a job because of a failed drug test. Arizona would call for random drug testing for all people who receive welfare. In Massachusetts, a bill has been introduced requiring random drug tests for recipients of public assistance who have prior drug convictions. If you fail the drug test, you would be placed by the state into a rehab program because of the states mandatory health care program. These are proposed bills by these states and of course, if these measures pass, they will likely be opposed by groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and others. On the other hand, I dont want my tax money being used to buy illegal drugs. And that seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Florida Governor Rick Scott is standing by his states new policy of drug testing welfare recipients even after the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the scheme in a lawsuit and just 2.5 percent of beneficiaries flunked the first round of tests in July. Scott not being deterred hired an organization to do a study on the drug testing effect on the state of Florida. A report by the Foundation for Government Accountability, a conservative think tank in Florida, found Scotts drug testing plan