Drug testing welfare recipients: What’s your take?

Poll: Should welfare recipients be tested for marijuana and other drug use?

Like any policy-promoting organization, periodically we at MPP take a step back to examine our stance on various issues to make sure that we’re accomplishing two goals. First, we want to promote the best policy possible — the one that leads to the most positive outcomes for all parties involved. Second, as an organization dependent on the generous support of readers and members like you (support our work here), we want to be responsive to our members.

For as long as I’ve been a member of the MPP team, we’ve been opposed to bills that mandate drug testing of beneficiaries of unemployment and other forms of public assistance. While our supporters have generally taken action on these alerts and seem supportive as a whole, one alert generated a number of emails in disagreement. So, we’re using the blog as a means to ask you, our supporters, what you think.

Here are some of the reasons MPP has always opposed drug testing of beneficiaries:

• Stripping indigent marijuana users — some of whom use marijuana for medical purposes— of aid is likely to be a significantly greater harm to that person than whatever harm results from using marijuana.
• MPP supports treating marijuana similarly to alcohol. However, beneficiaries are not and cannot be subjected to testing to see if they used alcohol in the past few weeks, while marijuana metabolites stay in one’s system for weeks. The loss of welfare or unemployment benefits is another unfair non-criminal collateral sanction imposed by states to punish individuals who choose marijuana instead of alcohol, like educational discrimination and loss of a driver’s license.
• There’s the “slippery slope” concern. What’s next, a drug test in order to obtain a driver’s license? In order to register to vote?
• There’s the civil liberties concern that forcing welfare recipients to submit to drug testing is unconstitutionally invasive. Indeed, a federal judge recently stopped Florida’s drug testing regime on Fourth Amendment grounds.

It’s also noteworthy that testing beneficiaries may not even accomplish its stated goals of saving money.

Still, in this time of austerity, this proposition enjoys substantial support, according to a 2011 Rasmussen poll.

So, now it’s your turn. We’d like to hear from you, our readers and supporters. What do you think of efforts to require welfare and unemployment beneficiaries to take and pass a drug test for marijuana in order to receive benefits?

I’ve set up a simple, one question poll here, and if you have comments to share you can leave them below. Feel free to forward this to others who might be interested, so we can solicit as wide a response from our activists as possible, as we are genuinely curious about what you think.

Thanks everyone, now go have a great Thanksgiving!