Welfare Drug Testing

Superior Essays
When talking about the subject of drug testing welfare recipients, many standpoints and opinions are made by people from different culture backgrounds and living situations. Random drug testing welfare recipient have yet to become a law because the government been going back and forth over this issue and has not came to a conclusion to if it is constitutional or not. Also the question of if it is actually beneficial to the regulating of welfare. Some agree that people who consider being welfare recipients should get tested, for simple fact certain people get on welfare with a drug habit and removing them is one way to save taxpayer and the government billions of dollars. Instead of actually using the program to better themselves and their …show more content…
State representative Guy Liebmann states his opinion “"If we as taxpayers are basically employing the recipients of welfare, the taxpayers should have a guarantee their money is not being abused by the recipient, and Taxpayer money should not subsidize someone 's drug habit." (House) State representative Liebmann and other taxpayers throughout the United States believe, tax payers shouldn’t work hard for their money just so it could be used to support someone who doesn’t even work habit of addiction. Drug testing those with an addiction and narrowing down who gets to receive welfare benefits will make tax payers feel a little better about paying taxes because they know their money is being use for something good. Another benefit of drug testing welfare recipients is that it will help welfare recipient that do have a drug or alcohol problem realize their addictions and motivation them to get treatment in order to keep the welfare benefits. During the testing of drug testing welfare recipients in Florida, they did a trial run on making drug testing a law that required welfare recipient to pass the drug test, if not was force to redeem their welfare benefits for up to six months then could be retested and must pass. It also benefits the government by helping them save money, if they drug test recipients and see who …show more content…
Many states has done test runs on random drug testing welfare recipients but none has succeeded. In 1999, the state of Michigan law allowed authorities to drug test for illegal use of drugs and to randomly test 20 percent of the welfare recipients twice each year. (State 5-6) During the running trial they tested around 268 welfare recipients and roughly Twenty-one tested positive for drug use. A U.S district judge believe this was violating citizens on welfare rights to the forth amendment, which is protection of unreasonable searches and abuse. The courts ruled this unconstitutional and discontinue this law in Michigan, some others states like Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Oregon tried out the some type of drug testing for welfare recipients. All these states has yet to make drug testing welfare recipients in the state an official law. The government problem with drug testing welfare recipients is how they are going to fund testing all the recipients throughout the United States with drug testing. Many drug addict who are now in rehab treatment and social workers feel as if there are less costly and efficient ways to try to identify those recipient who actually need this services and the other who are abusing it. As most states are bringing drug testing recipient into

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