5 Reasons Drug Testing Welfare Recipients Is Profoundly Stupid

Drug testing people who need government assistance hits every mark of extraordinarily bad policy.

By Tana Ganeva / AlterNet October 12, 2015

Before Scott Walker unhappily shuffled away from the GOP primary race, he tried to stand out in the crowded field with a right-wing classic: striving to make life harder for poor people who need government aid. Since July, Walker has boasted about his efforts to force every person who applies for food stamps (SNAP) to undergo a drug test. The ever-ambitious Wisconsin Governor even preemptively sued the federal government to ensure that the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers food stamps, wouldn't quash the program.

Making people pass a urine test before they can have food is for their own good, Walker insisted in September, telling the Huffington Post, "We're trying to help people who are in need of our assistance to get jobs [...] because the best thing we can do with them is to make sure they get the skills and education they need, and make sure they are drug free if they have an addiction, to get back in the workforce."

In fact, drug testing people who need government assistance hits pretty much every measure of extraordinarily bad policy: it doesn't work, it burns tax money, and it aims to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

But Walker won't be the last ambitious right-wing politician to propose drug testing government aid recipients, for obvious political reasons (though, as the Post points out, it didn't help his Presidential bid.)

"One of the things that makes these laws so dangerous is that there's no political risk involved for lawmakers," says ACLU staff lawyer Jason Williamson, who succesfully litigated a lawsuit against a drug testing law in Florida. "It's an easy way to go on record to say you're trying to save the state some money, help people addicted to drugs, make sure tax payer money not spent on a drug habit. Sounds great as a sound bite, not accurate in a number of ways."

Here are some of the reasons drug testing aid recipients is not very smart.

1. Welfare recipients don't do drugs at much higher rates than anyone else
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2. It doesn't actually catch people who use drugs
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3. It's ineffective partly because it's unconstitutional
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4. Drug use and addiction are not the same thing
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5. Shaming people is cruel and it does not work

Think Progress estimates that the 7 states with drug testing programs on the books have collectively spent over a million dollars to net very few users.

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