Pee for Proof

I want to address some logistical and moral issues I have with my colleagues Paige's editorial in favor of drug testing well fare recipients.

I want to start off by citing some results from states that have implemented drug testing for applicants. In the first year Missouri initiated drug testing they spent +$336k on tests and found 48 non-compliers. Over two years, Oklahoma spent +$385k and found 297 non-compliers. In Utah, the cost of testing was +$64k and they had 29 positive results. That's less than 1% non-compliers in all three states. Best case scenario, for the continued implementation of this initiative is that it scares people into clean testing, but how can that be quantified? Where is the proof that it was effective what-so-ever. The positive drug result rates for these applicants was even lower than the national average rates for positive drug tests. (1)

However, my real issue with the drug testing welfare recipients is the stigmatization. Let me draw a totally hypothetical situation that would never happen, with a different subset of people. From the national budget, education and medicare/health are roughly funded equally. Imagine you wanted to make cuts from that the education budget and proposed weeding out students who weren’t serious about their education from accessing pell grants. It would be massively expensive to weed through all college students so maybe you focused on community colleges, since four year universities typically have an academically higher performing population. You’re going to target community college students and require them to take a drug test to prove they are deserving of public assistance. Weed out the ones that could be taking advantage of the very expensive pell grants.

What requiring that proof by drug test is going to do is 1) be massively expensive to enforce 2) promote feelings of distrust between students and the institution 3) create a culture of shame for even being a student at a community college and needing financial aid which in turn 4) discourages people from utilizing those resources (how effective is not helping people with a problem?), and 5) disadvantage students who use weed, which, let’s be real, is similarly as low-risk as alcohol. Of course this would never happen. It’s shameful to stigmatize students, but what about stigmatizing welfare participants?

When talking about welfare budgets and recipients it’s important to know the whole figures. The budget for welfare programs encapsulates programs we don’t commonly consider such as social security, WIC, temporary unemployment, and the earned income credit (EOC) (the refund that goes to anyone making between less than $13k - $44k per year depending on your status, that’s a lot of folks.) Usually when opponents refer to welfare recipients they’re referring to food stamps and temporary assistance for needy families (TANF), and it is common that they are referring to those people in a negative, undeserving context. They see someone buying a cake and soda with their food stamps and suddenly that persons birthday supplies have become a public matter. Where is the outrage at politicians? At 3 million federal dollars being spent each weekend Trump spends at his resort in Florida instead of the white house? At $300 million dollars from the federal budget going to protect Melania Trump each year she lives at Trump Tower? Abuse of federal money happens at every level, why is the discourse focused on the poor and not on the people that control tax dollars?

1. https://thinkprogress.org/what-7-states-discovered-after-spending-more-than-1-million-drug-testing-welfare-recipients-c346e0b4305d