You Want to Drug Test Welfare Recipients?

[Speaker to Animals]

Based on your personal hunch? Wow... You should probably call the Governor, and let him know.

Uh, no, based on the number of people who opted out of the program when they were asked to provide a piss sample.

{citation needed}

It's from the article I cited like two posts before to which you replied!

[SuburbanFarmer]

Uh, no, based on the number of people who opted out of the program when they were asked to provide a piss sample.

{citation needed}

It's from the article I cited like two posts before to which you replied!

Took me all of 10 seconds to spot the problem. They required the welfare applicants to pay $25-35 for a fucking drug test. (extreme facepalm)

[Ex-California]

Not that it's relevant, but it's damned difficult (if not impossible) to spend $50/week on weed. You'd need to be taking a hit every other minute, 24/7, to accomplish that.

Not really, unless prices have really, really dropped in your area. My buddy and I used to smoke the equivalent of $50 a day in college

[Dand]

Are only the middle class allowed to dull the pain of the human condition? Do you lose that right, if disabled or poor?

The right to use illicit drugs? That might exist as a natural right but our gov sure doesn't acknowledge it.

I consider it a human right, as does society, and even the Puritans have had to concede that our civilization doesn't work without - at a minimum - alcohol consumption.
Yeah. I'd call it a right, or at the least, a social norm. There's never been a civilization without some kind of popular intoxicant.

Remember, they're only illicit because someone drafted a law concerning it. Not as a measure of Good/Evil.

You don't have to tell me to remember that. I am not an anti-drug person but I'm also not a deny-addiction-exists person. Drug use isn't automatically a positive thing for everyone that uses and intervention could help them.

It's like a company that announces they will have drug testing for employees at a specific time in the future (I've seen this before). The effect of that testing isn't to weed out all drug-users; it's to weed out all drug addicts that can't prioritize their career over their usage long enough to pass a test. I think this strategy can be applied to welfare recipients as well. Of course I am assuming that the goal is to help people and improve their lives rather than keeping them on welfare permanently. If they are on welfare for a limited time then they only need to be clean for a limited time.

Not that it's relevant, but it's damned difficult (if not impossible) to spend $50/week on weed. You'd need to be taking a hit every other minute, 24/7, to accomplish that.

Not really, unless prices have really, really dropped in your area. My buddy and I used to smoke the equivalent of $50 a day in college

That's what I'm talking about

[SuburbanFarmer]

The right to use illicit drugs? That might exist as a natural right but our gov sure doesn't acknowledge it.

I consider it a human right, as does society, and even the Puritans have had to concede that our civilization doesn't work without - at a minimum - alcohol consumption.
Yeah. I'd call it a right, or at the least, a social norm. There's never been a civilization without some kind of popular intoxicant.

Remember, they're only illicit because someone drafted a law concerning it. Not as a measure of Good/Evil.

You don't have to tell me to remember that. I am not an anti-drug person but I'm also not a deny-addiction-exists person. Drug use isn't automatically a positive thing for everyone that uses and intervention could help them.

It's like a company that announces they will have drug testing for employees at a specific time in the future (I've seen this before). The effect of that testing isn't to weed out all drug-users; it's to weed out all drug addicts that can't prioritize their career over their usage long enough to pass a test. I think this strategy can be applied to welfare recipients as well. Of course I am assuming that the goal is to help people and improve their lives rather than keeping them on welfare permanently. If they are on welfare for a limited time them they only need to be clean for a limited time.

Welfare pays out every 30ish days. You have to steer clear of marijuana for 30ish days, in order to pass a test. Don't pretend they're not going to institute a monthly testing regime with this crap.

And again... plenty of people are legitimately disabled, or have disabled kids, and should not be bothered with this shit. It's dehumanizing and wrong, and DEFINITELY not something the "Conservatives" should be pushing for.

[K@th]

My buddy and I used to smoke the equivalent of $50 a day in college

That would be over an ounce a week, each. Yikes.... I can see that if you're rolling joints and smoking them like cigarettes, but if you are not wasting it by letting it just burn... man oh man, that's a freaking insane amount of pot. Call me skeptical. That's more than a pound of week in 4 months.

It takes two of us close to 5 years to smoke a pound, and dude, seriously, we smoke every evening, all evening and more on the weekends.

[Ex-California]

Drug testing only is effective on marijuana users and chronic hard drug users.

All of the hard drugs only stay in your system for a day or two while marijuana stays for up to a month; drug testing unfairly skews against users of the most harmless drug there is.

But if we're going to regulate health, morality, and recreation, we have to do the following to be consistent. Breaking any of the following rules result in a loss of welfare

- No alcohol
- No TV
- BMI under 25
- Yearly biometric screenings for blood pressure, BMI, blood sugar, etc.

[Ex-California]

My buddy and I used to smoke the equivalent of $50 a day in college

That would be over an ounce a week, each. Yikes.... I can see that if you're rolling joints and smoking them like cigarettes, but if you are not wasting it by letting it just burn... man oh man, that's a freaking insane amount of pot. Call me skeptical. That's more than a pound of week in 4 months.

It takes two of us close to 5 years to smoke a pound, and dude, seriously, we smoke every evening, all evening and more on the weekends.

It was an 1/8 a day @ $50. It was a different time for me

[K@th]

It was an 1/8 a day @ $50. It was a different time for me

Let's get back to the original point I was arguing. The claim is that many/most welfare recipients are blowing most of their welfare money on weed... to the tune of $50/week.

I am highly suspicious that a large percentage of any population is blowing through 3 1/2 grams of weed a day. The notion, on it's face, is ridiculous.

[Ex-California]

It was an 1/8 a day @ $50. It was a different time for me

Let's get back to the original point I was arguing. The claim is that many/most welfare recipients are blowing most of their welfare money on weed... to the tune of $50/week.

I am highly suspicious that a large percentage of any population is blowing through 3 1/2 grams of weed a day. The notion, on it's face, is ridiculous.

Yeah i don't think anyone is blowing through that much either. If they are they're dealing because that's too much money and then the whole notion of "OUR MONEY IS BEING SPENT ON DRUGS" is moot because they're spending the dealing money on drugs