Organization: Penn State University
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 19:36:51 EDT
From: Jenni Sheehey <JMS111@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: Drug testing and welfare

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.  If someone tested positive, they
would have to agree to enter a free drug rehab program, and would
be tested every three months for the following year, assuming they were
still receiving benefits.  If they refuse, they'll lose benefits.

This bill is not my peeve.

Peeve: Everybody and their brother are getting up in arms about this
bill.  The director of the PA (Pennsylvania) ACLU (American Civil
Liberties Union) is quoted in an AP (Associated Press) article as saying
"This welfare thing is just disgusting." She also said, "Can the Fourth
Amendment really mean that the government cannot search your home, but
they can search your body?"

To that I say, "Hell, yes, in this case."

The reason I say this is that if these people are buying drugs, they're
doing it with *my* money.  Nobody's proposing that average citizens on
the street should have to submit to random drug testing, just people who
are making their living by having the government pay them to do nothing.

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.

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

The opponents also say that it "violates clients' rights by assuming
their guilt." It seems to me that that is a lot like saying, "Having
exams in college assumes that the students don't know anything." Of
course it doesn't.  It assumes that we don't know whether they know
anything or not.  In the same way, if we were assuming that the welfare
recipients were guilty of drug abuse, we would force them all to enroll
in drug rehab programs *without* testing them.

Anyway, if we want to look at it this way, it is the job of people who
are living off of public money to use that money wisely and lawfully,
and I think we can just consider this to be a job evaluation of the sort
that most employees have, no matter what their job.  If they're using
non-public money to buy drugs, then they obviously have enough money
that they don't *need* public money.  Either way, I don't think that the
proposed drug tests are an invasion of privacy.  They are always welcome
to refuse the test, if they are willing to forego the money for which
they are not working.  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.

                                                 --Jenni