From: carolo@cse.ucsc.edu (Carol Osterbrock)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: Re: Drug testing and welfare
Date: 24 Jul 92 10:42:08 GMT
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz (CE/CIS Boards)
NNTP-Posting-Host: arapaho.ucsc.edu

In article <92205.193651JMS111@psuvm.psu.edu> Jenni Sheehey <JMS111@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>Apparently in this state there is a proposed bill that would cause
>people receiving cash assistance (welfare) from the government to have
>to submit to random drug testing. 

[...J is all for this...]

>The reason I say this is that if these people are buying drugs, they're
>doing it with *my* money.

Ummm, whose money is the state going to use to do this drug testing?

>It absolutely astounds me that it should be legal to have employers for
>whom one is working be allowed to test you, but that employers for whom
>you are doing nothing should not be allowed to do so.

Well, it astounds me that it should be legal to have employers for
whom one is working be allowed to test you, too.  Not so long ago,
it was legal to have them make you sign a statement that you'd never 
belonged to a political party that they didn't like, but those wackos
from the ACLU got all uptight about that, so they had to stop.

>Besides, it's not like we're talking about a full body cavity search,
>here, anyway.

Yeah, I guess drawing blood is a lot less intrusive than sticking
a finger up your ass.

>The opponents of the bill say that the bill "supports the
>false image of welfare recipients as undeserving drug addicts." Well, it
>would seem to me that if they started testing people, and they all
>tested negative, that would do more than anything else I can think of
>off hand to counter that negative stereotype.  If there *are* a bunch of
>people that test positive, then it isn't a false image.  Either way, the
>facts (as statistics, with no names attached, of course) would be
>available to John Q. Public, and he could form his opinion based on
>that.

I think John Q. Public already has his opinion, and this sounds like
the state trying to jump on the currently popular bandwagon.  If it's
anything like the drug testing programs that private employers have
come up with, they'll spend a few million dollars to kick out a couple
of people, and any actual drug addicts will be able to slick their
way through.

[...]

>I'm not even receiving welfare, but if they want
>to test me first, they're welcome to.  I've never been quite sure what
>the big deal was, anyway, assuming one has nothing to hide.

Well, heck, kiddo, I'm sure they'll hit college students next.  Lord
knows it was *your* money that built all those buildings.  You can
walk proudly into the testing center with your sleeve rolled up,
knowing that you are *clean*.  You can gossip with your friends about
the girl down the hall that got kicked out last week because she got
stoned with her boyfriend a week before they hauled her in.  You can
sweat a little because you had a couple of beers after the killer
midterm.  You can proudly pay your taxes to build the new prisons that
have become necessary to keep all those heinous criminals from
leaching off society.  Maybe you can even have the ultimate honor of
turning in one of your friends!

Peeve:  people whose high school history class ended in 1945.

-carol "just say no" o
-- 
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Carol Osterbrock       *       Such a long, long time to be gone
carolo@cse.ucsc.edu    *         And a short time to be there...
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