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Obama, the criminal's friend

cheri1122

cheri1122

Veteran Expediter
Driver
I think drug abusers are sick, and putting them in prison rather than treatment is a tremendous misuse of taxpayer funds.
 
cheri1122

cheri1122

Veteran Expediter
Driver
LDB said:
Good idea but how is it paid for?
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Stop paying businesses incentives to do what they will do anyway. Stop spending public funds on megazillion dollar sports arenas. Stop passing legislation that is guaranteed to be taken to court. Stop repeating the errors of others [like drug testing welfare applicants].
There's plenty of waste in budgets, federal and state, that the legislators ignore.
It's more satisfying to punish people, even if it's more expensive, in the long run.
 
JohnWC

JohnWC

Veteran Expediter
Yep I believe they should drug test welfare . Just about anywhere you work you need a drug test and a lot of places have you pay for them and the random so why shouldn't they be drug tested. A lot of schools in this country have metal detectors, drug sniffing dogs and a cop or 2 . Some at elementary schools kids should be able to go to school with out worries of being stabbed shot or a drug dealer trying to get rich of their lunch money . Let's get schools back to learning and if it meens locking up drug dealers for life for dealing drugs in school zones it's worth it to me but also make prisons back like they were busting rock 12 hours a day chain gangs where they were chained in groups and built roads so it's a place that people deffently didn't want to go back.
 
cheri1122

cheri1122

Veteran Expediter
Driver
JohnWC said:
Yep I believe they should drug test welfare . Just about anywhere you work you need a drug test and a lot of places have you pay for them and the random so why shouldn't they be drug tested. A lot of schools in this country have metal detectors, drug sniffing dogs and a cop or 2 . Some at elementary schools kids should be able to go to school with out worries of being stabbed shot or a drug dealer trying to get rich of their lunch money . Let's get schools back to learning and if it meens locking up drug dealers for life for dealing drugs in school zones it's worth it to me but also make prisons back like they were busting rock 12 hours a day chain gangs where they were chained in groups and built roads so it's a place that people deffently didn't want to go back.
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If you believe there is good reason to drug test welfare applicants, you've missed what happened when 7 different states tried it. [Because one was maybe a fluke, right?] Facts really screw with a good fantasy - if you pay attention to them, that is. :rolleyes:

http://mic.com/articles/122607/arizona-drug-tested-welfare-recipients-here-are-the-shocking-results
 
cheri1122

cheri1122

Veteran Expediter
Driver
jjoerger said:
Drug treatment programs only work if the patient wants to get off drugs.
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That's true. But there are many who would go to treatment, if it were available. As it isn't, they go to jail instead.
Maybe the resistant ones could be sentenced to just take Narcan every day, under supervision. Or maybe a long acting form could be developed. In any case, jailing addicts is not really a good solution - in fact, it's pretty stupid, IMO. And it's not cheap, either.
 
muttly

muttly

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
Turtle

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
muttly said:
I'm not saying there should be drug testing, but I do believe it acts as a deterrent.
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Except the results from every state that has done it shows it's not a deterrent, because so few welfare recipients are on drugs in the first place. The deterrent is to deter people from doing what they don't even want to do. Arizona is a good example, as the Republican legislators who pushed this through in 2009 argued it would save the state $1.7 million a year. To date it has saved a whopping $560, and it cost them $499.06 for the actual tests themselves, for a net savings of $60.94. That doesn't even include the man hours of administering the program. Florida has lost more than $200,000 net for the testing. Kansas has gone in the hole, too, to the tune of $40,000. Utah is in the red at $64,566. Missouri is a negative $336,297, and Oklahoma is negative $385,872. So far, Arizona is the only state with an actual savings surplus of, again, $60.94. This after all the states with such legislation have spent collectively a little more than $1 million. A resounding success, I'd say.

The kicker is, the numbers show that applicants actually test positive at a lower rate than the drug use of the general population (9.4 percent for the general population versus less than 1 percent for welfare recipients).

And yet conservatives, who are allegedly about personal liberty, think this is still a good idea and is a responsible use of the money. They are hangin' tough on it's to prevent welfare recipients from being on drugs and the government subsidizing their habits, and so the welfare recipients and others will be safe where at work, but the numbers prove those fears are unfounded. What that means is, instead of being all intelligent and stuff, conservatives will ignore reality and hold onto their beliefs, and will want to expand the testing from suspicious-based to everyone-based, to make sure they can catch anyone who slips through.
 
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muttly

muttly

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
Turtle said:
Except the results from every state that has done it shows it's not a deterrent, because so few welfare recipients are on drugs in the first place. The deterrent is to deter people from doing what they don't even want to do. Arizona is a good example, as the Republican legislators who pushed this through in 2009 argued it would save the state $1.7 million a year. To date it has saved a whopping $560, and it cost them $499.06 for the actual tests themselves, for a net savings of $60.94. That doesn't even include the man hours of administering the program. Florida has lost more than $200,000 net for the testing. Kansas has gone in the hole, too, to the tune of $40,000. Utah is in the red at $64,566. Missouri is a negative $336,297, and Oklahoma is negative $385,872. So far, Arizona is the only state with an actual savings surplus of, again, $60.94. This after all the states with such legislation have spent collectively a little more than $1 million. A resounding success, I'd say.

The kicker is, the numbers show that applicants actually test positive at a lower rate than the drug use of the general population (9.4 percent for the general population versus less than 1 percent for welfare recipients).

And yet conservatives, who are allegedly about personal liberty, think this is still a good idea and is a responsible use of the money. They are hangin' tough on it's to prevent welfare recipients from being on drugs and the government subsidizing their habits, and so the welfare recipients and others will be safe where at work, but the numbers prove those fears are unfounded. What that means is, instead of being all intelligent and stuff, conservatives will ignore reality and hold onto their beliefs, and will want to expand the testing from suspicious-based to everyone-based, to make sure they can catch anyone who slips through.
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Like I said, I believe it acts as a deterrent, but ONLY because they merely have to pass a drug test BEFORE they can go on welfare. It's not a random drug test. That makes a huge difference. The recipient knows if they just pass the initial 'entry' drug test that they are good to go, sort of speak . A person that knows they have to take a drug test on a specific date will be more likely to pass it than someone who might take a random test sometime in the future.
There is a huge incentive to pass the drug test so they can receive welfare money--hence the deterrent.
Again, I'm not necessarily for giving out drug tests, but IMO it's just human nature that if someone is given an ultimatum(pass the drug test)so they can receive money, they will do it.
Having said all of that, there seems to be something not right about the figure of 87,000 people taking a drug test and only ONE FAILED TEST. Not because I think welfare recipients are likely to fail a drug test, but because if you give 87,000 people a drug test you'll get more than one. Just from my observations from people and their experience taking drug tests.
 
muttly

muttly

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
I checked out the link inside the article Cheri posted.
Excerpt below:
The reason so few people must take the test is because reasonable cause is needed, said Nicole Moon, a public information officer for DES. When someone is approved to receive welfare benefits in Arizona, that person is screened by being given a three-question form, which asks if the recipient has used any illegal drugs in the past 30 days. If the applicant answers yes, then a drug test is required.

I think that explains the one failed drug test.
 
Turtle

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
Well, as GOP state Rep. John Kavanagh Arizona Sonora News Service, "If you want to be a pessimist, you say it's failed. If you want to be an optimist, it's a strong deterrent and they're not using drugs,"

Or, it could be that people with no money don't have any money for drugs, and/or most of them don't do drugs in the first place.

The 87,000 people and one failed test, that was just for the first three years of the program in Arizona. All totaled from 2009-2014, of 142,424 tested, three have failed the test, plus another 23 who refused and were relieved of their benefits. So you could speculate that those 23 (or a large percentage of them, anyway) might have failed the test if they'd taken it. So taking the most liberal stance (sorry, couldn't help it), that's as many as 26 over 5 years. I''m sure that's very disappointing to those who think drug testing will save $1.7 million a year.

I agree that just 1 out of 87,000 seems like a really low number, but then again if you tested 87,000 Jehovah's Witnesses, or Scientologist, or Seventh Day Adventists, that 1 number would seem shockingly large.

It could be an aberration in Arizona, as other states who test have not had such a low number. Well, except for Mississippi, which has had 2. But all of them are testing at a rate lower than the general population. It could be the deterrent, or it could be that people with no money tend to use drugs at a lower rate. Well, except for Oklahoma, where they were very nearly at the national average.

State Tested Failed
MO - 38,970 - 48
OK - 3,342 - 397
UT - 9,552 - 29
KS - 2,783 - 11
MS - 3,656 - 2
TN - 16,017 - 37
AZ - 142,424 - 3
 
Turtle

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
muttly said:
I checked out the link inside the article Cheri posted.
Excerpt below:
The reason so few people must take the test is because reasonable cause is needed, said Nicole Moon, a public information officer for DES. When someone is approved to receive welfare benefits in Arizona, that person is screened by being given a three-question form, which asks if the recipient has used any illegal drugs in the past 30 days. If the applicant answers yes, then a drug test is required.

I think that explains the one failed drug test.
Click to expand...
There are other reasons beyond the answered questions that will prompt a required test, though. It's not like the test hinges solely on that question. DES officials would administer tests based on reports of possible drug abuse received from law-enforcement or other government agencies (although law enforcement doesn't routinely report drug use to DES, although Child Protective Service does), as well as if any DES official believes at the time of the application that someone may be engaged in the illegal use of controlled substances, like if they're high at the time, or show evidence of drug abuse.
 
muttly

muttly

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
So not much communication from law enforcement to DES . There would have to be some type of arrest record for drugs also. There is plenty of people that do drugs that don't have an arrest record. The questionnaire appears to be a big part of it though. Many recipients probably get wind of how to answer the-questionnaire-- check NO.
Pertaining to the 'follow up drug test', I'm not sure what that is about. You either pass or fail. So some had to retake drug test, ( fail) in essence having two bites at the apple. They weren't included in fail category . The others had 'problems' with their test, but didn't take it again. But they weren't included in the fail category either.
Curious how thorough DES is in flagging suspected drug users.
Could be a situation where they're practicing a lot of leeway.
The statistics from various states may be indicative that some states have stricter protocols than others. Just too large of a discrepancy in numbers.
 
Turtle

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
A test can come back inconclusive, so you'd be asked to retest. And I think (but I'm not positive) that if you fail a test, because of the false-positive rate of drug testing, that's who are asked to retest.

As for the disparity in numbers, realistically you'd toss the extremes (AZ, MS, OK) and then take a closer look at the remaining results from which to draw the most valid conclusions.
 
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