[PUG] DRUG TEST all college students, unemployment beneficiaries, public school children!!!

[christmas]

someone is trying to take away my right to pee in cupS

 

[54192&#cmy]

I find that as time passes on it's harder for people to live anything other than the corporate lifestyle. Those on welfare may not fit into that type of 9-5 work. And small business is getting less and less these days with all the regulation going on. There are millions of Americans out of work and the welfare state is growing. Let's not forget that are current President is an admitted Pot smoker. He really enjoyed it. Enough to write about it in his own book. I wonder how many other elected officials can say the same thing? I think they should be drug tested first!​

 

[Kanamori]

The fact that it's more expensive to drug test all of the welfare recipients pretty much negates a financial reason to do it.

I don't think I could work for a company that required drug testing unless there was serious money involved... well, honestly I would probably refuse to do any drug test. Drugs are hardly the only way to poverty and certainly not even the greatest cause of it... Peeing in cups for people because they think it's the only reason you could be poor is pretty degrading.

We should really be sure they're not spending the money on video-games, and check their credit cards etc.

*mumbles something about unreasonable search and seizure*

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

 

[Blackmountainside]

there are some implicit messages in drug testing welfare recipients ---- unemployed people and low income earners: are socially inferior; should not be trusted; are incapable of taking care of other aspects of their lives; require mandatory government supervision to ensure good citizenship.

i can appreciate intent is often sincere and aimed at protecting individual and families, however, there are far more useful ways to assist people who need support. one should not be chastised based simply on employment status. it’s regressive and demeaning. yes, there is a correlation between drug use and unemployment (poverty causes and reflects micro/macro social issues). but we should be careful not to assume that all people who use drugs are drug-dependent or that all welfare-recipients use drugs or that all welfare-recipients who use drugs are unable to adequately care for their children.

i do believe strength-based approach is best for individuals and families. (so you’re not doing too well, but tell me what you good at? let’s do this together and work towards you not needing me anymore) and if you feel compelled to assist on personal level, human services are always looking for more workers.

 

[Apone]

I would fully support drug-testing anyone who works on wall street.
Cocaine was a big part of why the 2008 crash occurred.

 

[MrDoobie]

with a learning-deficient druggie daughter (she's hard to describe, e.g. she won't make the connection between fat free milk and nonfat milk if sent to the store)and abusive felon baby-daddy always in tow.

This is the second time the anecdotal "druggie awful mom" evidence has been used, and I still really want someone to demonstrate a direct, casual relationship between bad parenting and drugs.

Here's the thing, I do not believe that hardcore drug use is a cause of damaged minds, but a symptom (a symptom that may exacerbate the already existing problem). Despite what those propaganda films they show you in high school tell you, I have yet to meet or hear of someone who was completely self-actualized, happy, and fulfilled before they started using hard drugs, and then suddenly they did drugs and turned into a monster.

I feel like people get too caught up in the drug aspect of these things. Instead of asking ourselves, "what evils hath drugs wrought?" we should be asking "how could someone get themselves into such a mental predicament that they started smoking meth, and that meth became more important to them than their children".

Those poor kids will be scarred for life because of her problems, and tax money funds this.

Taking away her welfare will not save her children or soothe their pain, it will only make her financial situation worse, and we all know that Chinese proverb, "hunger and cold produces thieves" (or somesuch). This "druggie mother" is already in a precarious situation, she's on welfare, she has an abusive boyfriend, she is addicted to meth, now try to imagine what would happen if she was living in her car. Do you think without the money she'd just not be able to get meth and would have to quit cold turkey, get all better, and then work her way to becoming a productive member of society? Fairly unlikely, in my opinion.

How is it good for anyone if we take unproductive members of society and damn them to a lifetime of being super unproductive members of society?

 

[Eric86]

Since I saw it mentioned earlier, I was the one who posted that story about the store clerk getting fired for refusing to sell cigarettes to someone who was using EBT cash benefits. It is amazing to me how a great many people (not referring to on this forum, but in the comments of the article) were quick to defend the clerks actions based on their own initial gut reaction of the "wrongness" of using "government money" to buy something they don't like. And every time it was always something like "why should my taxes pay for your cigarettes!? you loser scum!". As if it were their place to make that judgement call in the first place.

Here in Wisconsin the card you get for the FoodShare program will not work if you try to buy cigarettes, alcohol, or anything else that is not food, even food or cooking-related things like plastic wrap. On the register display it will show that the price of the food items is deducted and everything else is still there, it happens automatically. I used to be on that program for a while so I know how it is here. It made no difference to me, but I think it should just be like a regular debit card; if people want to use it for things other than food, then they should have to deal with the consequences of it themselves, but then the name of the program would have to not be FoodShare. It is still a good thing anyways, it helped me out a lot. Here is the site for FoodShare and the other state programs. I've been on BadgerCare+ for singles for about a year and a half since I make under the limit to qualify for it (even if I was above a certain point I would just have a higher co-pay and not have to pay any more for the insurance itself other than the $60/year processing fee) and I can't get insurance from my employer (where I work currently, you have to be there 15 months before you can get any sort of benefits like that). I would pay for my own health insurance if I had a reasonably affordable option, though those are few and far between due to the negative feedback loop of the health care industry that continually makes everything more expensive (like the ridiculously high expense of even getting a degree to be a doctor and the medical practice insurance in case you get sued for millions of dollars, pharmaceutical companies maintaining patents on medication for a REALLY long time and even extending them past the expiration period multiple times to stop generic versions from being available [the patent system in general is so broken]).

https://access.wisconsin.gov/

We waste more money on our bloated military and building weapons than anything else...

Close, but not quite. The big three all need to be majorly overhauled and downsized, though the ponzi scheme...I mean, social security...is more likely to just collapse than be reformed, it's just a matter of time. Transportation, education, and science should be bumped up a lot, that would really help with the economy and quality of living here, as well as helping people to be more self-sufficient in the long run...sounds peachy on paper, but of course the government isn't too wise about deciding what and how things of that nature should be invested in i.e. Solyndra, cash for clunkers, all the bank and car manufacturing bailouts, high speed rail systems/bridges/airports/malls in low populated areas, and countless other stupidly wasteful, impractical, and downright weird things like in here (A study on how cocaine affects risky sex habits of quails? Dragon robots? Cowboy poetry? How chimps throw their poop to communicate? Seriously, who comes up with this crap lol? :crazy...it's pretty bad and I have little hope of it getting better.

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1258

Anyways--tangents aside lol--I agree that drug testing for any form of welfare is a pointless waste of time and money.

 

[Jill Hives]

[MENTION=114]Eric86[/MENTION]

When I said EBT cash benefits I was referring to a card for cash benefits,not food only, although there is an EBT food account option for the card also which is to be used only for food. It is meant to be used exactly the same way that you would use a welfare check. You can use that money for anything you want, just like using a debit card. The store clerk in question refused to sell someone cigarettes who was using a legally valid purchase option. So, not the same thing as telling someone they can't use a card that wouldn't have even gone through for a payment of a non-food item in the first place.

 

[Eric86]

Ok, I must have missed the "cash benefits" part lol.