Drug Testing the Poor

A district court in Florida recently said the states' decision to drug test welfare recipients was unconstitutional.

Most legislators are lawyers. How did they not know that you couldn’t randomly test people for drugs just because they are receiving government aid?

Before you get all been out of shape, I don't want to give taxpayer money to go drug abusers, but I don't want to violate the rights of the 98% of welfare recipients who are not on drugs. Florida Gov. Rick Scott knew what the results were, but he enacted the law anyway because it helped him politically. The governor wants to extend a very expensive random drug test to all state employees. He’s also appeasing a constituency that does not like government employees.

I worked for company who did random drug tests, and I was very upset when I had to consent to it as a matter of employment. I've never done any drugs in my life, and I had worked at the company for over twenty years. I realized it was about more insurance rates, and the fact that we had some people who handled very toxic material, than it was my feelings. In the five or more years that it was in place before I retired, I was tested twice.

These drug-testing laws are being pushed by a right-wing think tank named the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) that is funded; you guessed it, the Koch Bros. Despite the court rulings, this group is going around the country instructing GOP lawmakers on how to push the law through their state’s legislative body.

ALEC will now have to tweak their policy because it’s now legal to smoke pot in Washington state and Colorado ,so when you start making exceptions, your case becomes weaker.