Drug testing Welfare applicants in the U.S. is wrong.

Starting off, drug testing Welfare applicants is full fledged discrimination. Every single person in the U.S. is a benificiary of some service paid for by taxes including roads, military protection, social security paid for by the next generation, schools, parks, our Congress's benefit packages and salaries(which is beyond measure), teacher salaries, law enforcement salaries, full time fire fighter salaries, government funding to Native American tribes, food stamps(not drug tested), WIC(not drug tested), disaster areas' relief, and military salaries. Another point I'd like to make is that families with children get tax rebates and incentives for having children. If the argument ever comes up to yank any of those child-included benefits, the argument is "Kids are innocent and have no choice. We don't want to punish children for their parents' mistakes or inabilities." Is this not the exact same thing? If the parent applying for Welfate fails the drug test, now what? We have the same dilemma. The kids are punished because of their parent's mistake. What happens if a family applies, the mom tests clean, but the nontested father then takes the money and spends it on drugs? Are we to test both parents now? What if one is clean, and one is dirty? Does that warrant a half of a check? But they test the applicant. If you are a couple applying for food stamps, don't you simply just send the clean/cleaner of the two people in the couple? A possible scenario I now enter a quote from forbes.com discussing the so called "War on Drugs", going so far as to call it a war on the poor. "The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world," a recent report from the Global Commission on Drug Policy"concludes. "Political leaders and public figures should have the courage to articulate publicly what many of them acknowledge privately: that the evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that repressive strategies will not solve the drug problem, and that the war on drugs has not, and cannot, be won." Each year that we fail to face this reality, the report says, "billions of dollars are wasted on ineffective programs," "millions of citizens are sent to prison unnecessarily," and "hundreds of thousands of people die from preventable overdoses and diseases." "...in spite of the good intentions of the Commission"s report, the answer is not in easing up on petty drug offenders while going after violent criminals. Sullum rightly notes that if the problem is prohibition, the solution is ending prohibition. I agree. It"s time to end the war on the poor, and quit criminalizing drug use. This doesn"t mean we should walk away from drug abuse: many people will always need treatment for drug addiction, whether drugs are legal or illegal. But it"s time to stop disrupting communities and perpetuating the cycle of violence. It"s time to end the war, not just draw down the troops. http://www.forbes.com... It"s also discriminatory and, at least according to some judges, unconstitutional. If receiving federal money is the trigger, what about drug testing everyone else who receives grants, federal loans and public money to start businesses, go to college or buy a home? m.nydailynews.com/opinion/drug-testing-welfare-recipients-big-mistake-conservatives-article-1.1734098 I"m all for a hand up, but where is it in this legislation? Someone tests positive for drugs, is denied federal assistance and is sent back out onto the streets moneyless and drug addicted. How is he any closer to being solvent or off drugs? How is the community safer when a broke and desperate drug addict is left without anywhere else to go?