Drug Testing and Government Programs
Domenico Santo
Delaware Technical Community College
As time progressed, the idea of welfare has changed. Welfare was has been able to help families and individuals when they aren’t in the right place in their time. As time has gone by you see more and more who are on welfare. It wasn’t something that people would go around sharing, but, now and days when you meet someone that is on welfare it doesn’t surprise you as much as it did. Due to that you look online you see some videos and comments that say something along the lines of, “I get more food stamps than you.” As some comments may not be taken as serious as they should be, there are some sell their food stamps to make money. When you see someone selling their food stamp or know someone that is on welfare some may call them lazy. As this has been more and more of a seen cause for welfare, drug testing welfare recipients have been placed. I believe that it is unfair that the drug testing of these individuals due to them not getting the privacy that is needed.
Welfare has been defined in many different ways. It has been defined as “well-being, happiness, health and prosperity (of a person, community)” (Greve 51).Due to the help of the government, there are more healthy and happy people. There are 6 main ways to gain help being, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, Unemployment benefits and SNAP, also known as food stamps. Programs like these are meant to be helping the ones who are suffering from poverty. Pew Research Center stated, “Unemployment benefits, food stamps, welfare and Medicaid target lower-income Americans or those facing a short-term economic hardship such as a loss of a job. In contrast, Social Security and Medicare primary-though not exclusively-serve older adults of all income levels” (Taylor 3).
Now and days, you see the use of government programs more often. In 2012, a study was conducted by Pew Research Center, this included 2,511 participants that were asked questions via telephone from November 28th 2012 through December 5th 2015. The questions were based on the government programs. The results of the testing was, “majority of Americans (55%) have received government benefits from at least one of the six best-known federal entitlement programs, (32%) said they received help from two or more” (Taylor 1). The 16% that didn’t say they were receiving the help from these programs also mentioned they were living with someone else. There was a 55% of people who have received these benefits personally, black women who lived in the rural areas were likely to gain these benefits more than white men in suburban areas. Pew Research Center was also able to find, “that nearly six-in-ten Americans (57%) say it is the government’s responsibility to care for those who cannot take care of themselves” (Taylor 2).
Florida was the first state to be able be begin the drug testing welfare recipients, in 2011. The most spread comment in media stated, “I-95 will be jammed for the next month or so…. Druggies and deadbeats heading North out of Florida”. There were jokes that started spreading everywhere; gaining the knowledge that they thought anyone receiving help from the government were on drugs. This was followed by Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin. As of March 2016, “seventeen states are now planning to address substance abuse and drug testing for welfare programs” (NCSL). Years started to progress and more and more states were starting to drug test. When Tennessee passed their bill, in 2014, there was a required test for suspicion- base. There was a questionnaire that Welfare recipients had to answer. Any sign that showed suspicion of drug use, they were tested. All seventeen states drug test for Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), while Medicaid is rarely being drug tested for. Less than half of those states are drug testing for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Most states drug test for TANF because the individual is supplied with money. The government supplies the money for the things that individual and family needs, but cannot control what they spend it on. SNAP on the other hand can be control. SNAP is a certain amount of money put onto a card use to buy almost all food sold in grocery stores.
Drug test usage controlling the government has been unfair because it has not only affected the individuals but children. Making the drug test mandatory, you can take it or lose your assistance. “If welfare recipients fail a drug test or refuse to take it, they don’t have the option to find another government to get the assistance that they need. Most welfare recipients are in need of public assistance due to situations that they cannot control. For Example, if a single mother of three kids get laid off due to the harsh economy, at some point, she has no other choice but to ask for help. Eventually, she may have to utilize public assistance that the government has put in place such as food stamps. If the government make drug testing mandatory, the single mother of three has only one choice to make- do whatever the government requires to feed her kids” (Bennett 9). This mother is willing to do everything she can to supply for her children. Drug use is illegal, but “the penalty for doing drugs should not be homelessness or starvation for whole families” (Bennett 9).
Denise Calder, a middle school teacher in Broward County, Florida, has a Bachelors of Science and has worked steadily since 1994. Now she is a 42-year-old divorced, single mother of 4 kids, making $41,300 every year. Every penny goes to food, rent, gas, medical bills and anything else mandatory. “Since 2009, she has a accepted for Medicaid and SNAP on 2 occasions” (Cunha 2). The typical welfare female is seen as “the welfare queen with 6 kids, driving around in a Cadillac, watching soap operas on an expensive television and eating junk food on the couch” (Cunha 1). That is not the case with Denise or the average female on welfare. Denise is doing everything in her power to supply everything her children with everything they need, she has no choice but to apply for assistance. Due to her raising 4 kids and being a school teacher there has been a lot of stress. Due to the stress of all of it she has smoked some marijuana. With her smoking it hasn’t changed the fact that she is good mother. Denise is doing what she pleases, like any other person who is doing alright without the help from the government programs.
It is an invasion of privacy to drug test individuals who are receiving help from the government. The Fourth Amendment states “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” and that warrants should only issue upon probable cause” (Wurman 3). The Fourth Amendment guarantees to protect us and our rights. The court makes it seem like our rights aren’t being taken away; “they force individuals to consent to invasive drug test and thereby relinquish Fourth Amendment rights” (Goetzl 2). Asking individuals receiving help from government programs to take a drug test or give up welfare “does not require them to compromise one constitutional right at the expense of another” (Goetzl 4). For a drug test a search is being conduction through an individual’s body by looking at the blood and urine, “by forcing this particular group of people to submit to mandatory drug screening, it is not only discriminatory but also an invasion of privacy and unconstitutional” (Bennett 1).
Time and money has been wasted from focusing on the ones who have received assistance from the programs. Drug test have been known for being expensive and can be around $40 to $60 a test. If there were 10,000 people taking the drug test and 9,000 showed up negative, we could reimburse those 9,000 negative test. The cost for us would be around $360,000 to $540,000 if each drug test was in the range of $40 to $60. There are other things we can use the money for, an example of this would be the taxpayers. The taxpayers money has been used to the small percent of the ones who actually need it, but if they were to be used for something more, like helping them get jobs and start their lives again. Help would go to the people with house assistance, job searches, food, insurance and so on. The people who are receiving government assistance are testing positive for drug use. Rather than using your typical urine drug test which cost less, “80% of states claimed that they used the self-report instruments” (Larrison & Sullivan 118). So the amount being spent on drug testing is greater than expected. Once drug testing was passed, Michigan had a universal testing program and 1.2% tested positive of the illicit drug that wasn’t marijuana. So, if 500 people were drug tested, roughly about 5 of them tested positive. There is a lot of focus on those 5 individuals and neglecting the other 495 individuals.
Some might think that the individuals that are on Welfare are known to be lazy. There have been states who have shown that there might be free rides that come from being on Welfare. Individuals receiving the government assistance work just as hard as everyone else. Everyone assumes that people who receive welfare are not doing nothing; “according to current federal guidelines, TANF recipients are required to participate in work activities for 30 hours per week” (Larrison & Sullivan 112). Work activities include actually working, including the search for a job. Connections are trying to be made with drugs and being unemployed. It is hard to tie these two together. “Rates of illicit drug use are consistently highest among unemployed adults and lowest among those with full-time employment. Even so, national surveys consistently find that nearly 75% of illicit drug users are employed either full-time or part time. Clearly the correlation between drug use and employment is far from perfect” (Larrison & Sullivan 116-117). According to the survey, the individuals who show results using the drugs are the ones who are employed. The unemployed individuals on welfare are not showing drug problems in the numbers. This survey shows that you can have a drug problem bring employed without the help from government programs. Drug use should be focused on everyone, not just individuals who receive help from government programs.
Drug tests are not 100% effective. If you know the right people and are given enough time, anyone is capable of passing a drug test. A drug test can make a mistake and conclude a misreading.“False positives are another problem, both because of flaws in the handling of samples and because over-the-counter medicines can be misread; the cold medication Nyquil, for example, often registers as an opiate. Officers of the New York City Police Department are prohibited from eating muffins with poppy seeds because of the potential for false drug readings” (Chapman 2). If a drug test were to come back positive, everyone’s first thought is that this individual is on drugs. No one stops to think about the little things such as Nyquil and poppy seed muffins that could potentially throw off the results of a drug test. If an individual failed a drug test and mention that they had a poppy seed muffin, you can’t assume they are lying nor can you trust their word. Drug test are not very efficient and we should eliminate them overall.
Eventually at some point, we will have to put our pride to the side and ask for help. Times can be difficult and we don’t need unnecessary things like drug testing make it harder. Drug testing individuals should not be used as an effective way to reduce the number of individuals taking advantage of government programs because not everyone is taking advantage of the government programs. It is unfair for the individual and their family if they are drug tested, drug testing is an invasion of privacy and we are spending money drug testing than we are helping the individuals who are using our government programs.
References
Bennett, Erica. "Should Welfare Recipients Be Drug Tested?" (2013): n. pag.USCUSTATE. ELF, 2013. Web. 11 June 2016.
Chapman, Roger. "Drug Testing." Culture Wars in America: An Encyclopedia of Issues, Viewpoints, and Voices. Eds. Roger Chapman and James Ciment. London: Routledge, 2013. Credo Reference. Web. 11 June 2016
Cunha, Darlena. "Why Drug Testing Welfare Recipients Is A Waste Of Taxpayer Money." (2014): 1. Academic Search Premier. Web. 11 June 2016.
Goetzl, Celia. "Government Mandated Drug Testing for Welfare Recipients:Specials Need or Unconstitutional Condition." Lexis Nexis. University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, May 2013. Web. 23 June 2016.
Greve, Bent. "What Is Welfare?" What Is Welfare? Central European Journal of Public Policy, 2008. Web. 11 June 2016.
Kirst-Ashman, Karen K. Introduction to Social Work & Social Welfare: Critical Thinking Perspectives. N.p.: Brooks Cole, 2016. Google Books. Brooks Cole, 01 Jan. 2016. Web. 11 June 2016. <460-467>.
Larrison, Christopher R., and Michael K. Sullivan. "Addressing Substance Abuse Among TANF Recipients:Current Issues and Approaches." The Impact of Welfare Reform: Balancing Safety Nets and Behavior Modification. 1st ed. New York: Routledge, 2013. 111-20. Google Books. Routledge, 1 Feb. 2013. Web. 23 June 2016.
Taylor, Paul. "A Bipartisan Nation of Beneficiaries." Pew Research Centers Social Demographic Trends Project RSS. Ed. Rich Morin. Pew Social & Demographic Trends, 18 Dec. 2012. Web. 23 June 2016.
Wurman, Ilan. "Drug Testing Welfare Recipients as a Constitutional Condition." Stanford Law Review 65.5, May 2013. 1153-1193. Lexis Nexis Web. 11 June 2016.
"Drug Testing for Welfare Recipients and Public Assistance." Drug Testing for Welfare Recipients and Public Assistance. NCSL, 28 Mar. 2016. Web. 26 June 2016.