More American Workers Are Testing Positive for Drugs

[pineapplemike]

Another problem with random drug tests, you won't catch people abusing some of these drugs unless it's done on a twice-weekly basis (or you spring for the expensive hair tests). Since stopping people from abusing drugs is the real goal, 8 drug tests per month for all welfare recipients, on the taxpayer dime, for the greater good.

[Speaker to Animals]

You people are fucking hysterical.

Drug abuse is a disease. It should be treated. This isn't about morality. It's about treating the hell of drug addiction. You actually oppose that. Holy fucking shit.

[jbird4049]

I would impose mandatory random drug screenings in order to better manage the welfare funds and to effectively fight the poverty that led to welfare in the first place. If a person tests positive, I would just closely monitor the funds and how they use them. Audit them. Then I would require that they go to a drug treatment program. I have no problem paying for drug treatment for every American who needs it.

Okay, that I agree with 100%

+1

[jbird4049]

I think the purpose of welfare is to end poverty. I think one of the chief causes of poverty, or at least one of the primary obstacles for many escaping poverty, happens to be drug abuse.

This is the shibboleth that separates people who have no goodwill towards the poor and those who want to actually help them. If you just want to throw money at them so they vote for your political party, without actually helping them escape poverty, then you obviously couldn't care less about them.

What's so wrong with identifying a drug abuse problem (which is a disease after all) and getting people to treatment for that?? It's really unbelievable to me that you people seriously oppose that. How fucked up can you get? Oh wait.. I just remembered the Euro thread..

I rather agree with all this. I have a problem dictating welfare being dependent on not taking an arbitrary list of "drugs". It becomes not about health and addiction, but about morality, and abstinence from the almost arbitrary list regardless if they are addicted.

[Speaker to Animals]

I think the purpose of welfare is to end poverty. I think one of the chief causes of poverty, or at least one of the primary obstacles for many escaping poverty, happens to be drug abuse.

This is the shibboleth that separates people who have no goodwill towards the poor and those who want to actually help them. If you just want to throw money at them so they vote for your political party, without actually helping them escape poverty, then you obviously couldn't care less about them.

What's so wrong with identifying a drug abuse problem (which is a disease after all) and getting people to treatment for that?? It's really unbelievable to me that you people seriously oppose that. How fucked up can you get? Oh wait.. I just remembered the Euro thread..

I rather agree with all this. I have a problem dictating welfare being dependent on not taking an arbitrary list of "drugs". It becomes not about health and addiction, but about morality, and abstinence from the almost arbitrary list regardless if they are addicted.

I do not advocate using drug tests to deny access to welfare. I am saying that, if a person is hooked on heroin, just sending them a check every month in welfare is NOT HELPING. You have to manage that for them or they will spend it on heroin. These people need access to effective drug treatment programs, vocational training, and HOPE.

[MilSpecs]

I think the purpose of welfare is to end poverty. I think one of the chief causes of poverty, or at least one of the primary obstacles for many escaping poverty, happens to be drug abuse.

It seems there are more people who start out poor and become drug addicts than people who start out rich and become poor due to drug addiction. That would point to addiction getting a push from poverty (no pun intended). I believe that people are born with the disease and environment exacerbates or offsets the genetic tendency. Like a lot of other human diseases. We need more research.

[Dand]

I would impose mandatory random drug screenings in order to better manage the welfare funds and to effectively fight the poverty that led to welfare in the first place. If a person tests positive, I would just closely monitor the funds and how they use them. Audit them. Then I would require that they go to a drug treatment program. I have no problem paying for drug treatment for every American who needs it.

Okay, that I agree with 100%

+1

+2
This doesn't need to be a choice between hysterical absolutes of prohibition and "dude weed is a cure-all".

[MilSpecs]

Okay, that I agree with 100%

+1

+2
This doesn't need to be a choice between hysterical absolutes of prohibition and "dude weed is a cure-all".

That's assuming the cause of poverty (or, as the thread started, work-related problems) is drugs to begin with. Current drug testing practices in the workplace (or for welfare) are more moral panaceas than actually solving a problem.

This is also predicated on a lot of other assumptions, among which that all drug use is addiction, that specific drugs are a bigger problem, that poverty emanates from drug use (rather than drug use emanating from poverty), or that one socioeconomic class of people is more likely to suffer from drug addiction that would affect their work more than another socioeconomic class of people. We don't even know whether the tests being given are accurate or whether they're given to people who have a legitimate reason for taking a given drug. It's a huge waste of resources that could be used to help people who really do have a drug problem, or to help people out of poverty so they don't develop a drug problem.

We need more research.

[Speaker to Animals]

Because being a heroin addict totally doesn't impact your ability to escape poverty...

[MilSpecs]

Because being a heroin addict totally doesn't impact your ability to escape poverty...

So they're only testing for heroin at work?