Drug Testing for Welfare Recipients? Essay

Impermanent Assistance for Needy Families ( TANF ) is a federally funded block grant which provides destitute households aid in happening and obtaining work chances. The financess are given to provinces to administer. States are allowed some flexibleness in how they chose to administer these financess. There has been a recent motion among provinces to implement drug proving for appliers and receivers to have this aid. Many people see this as a misdemeanor of their 4th amendment rights. The political orientation behind drug testing is to weed out abuse of financess by receivers. therefore relieving budgetary concerns in difficult economic times. Are at that place other agencies of easing budgetary issues without potentially go againsting the 4th amendment rights of the hapless? A common stereotype of people having public aid is they are people who are drug nuts. alkies. lazy. and don’t privation to work. Stereotypes are generalisations made about a certain group of people. good or bad. Stereotypes have a negative affect when they keep us from seeing a individual for who they truly are contradicting the person ( Iowa State University Study Abroad Center ) . Harmonizing to an sentiment canvass on Debate. org. 70 per centum of people responded “yes” when replying the inquiry. “Should person having public assistance be drug tested? ” Respondents stated grounds such as “You can’t trust person to utilize free money on things they need” . “Help should be given to those who truly necessitate it non to people who are excessively lazy to work…” . and “I don’t believe it is just … hard-working people have to pay revenue enhancements. and the money goes to lazy people who spend our hard earned money on drugs” ( Debate. com ) . These statements are declarative of pigeonholing ; stereotypes being permeant within our society ( Iowa State University Study Abroad Center ) . However. non all appliers or receivers necessitating public aid autumn within the stereotype. Luis Lebron is a 35-year-old Navy veteran. male parent of a 4-year-old. the exclusive health professional for his handicapped female parent and a pupil at the University of Central Florida. He merely needs some aid after holding served his state and while seeking to complete school and take attention of his boy and disabled female parent ( Bloom ) . The American Civil Liberties Union ( ACLU ) in Florida has filed a case on behalf of Lebron due to his refusal to subject to a drug trial and release his 4th Amendment rights. Lebron feels that. “It’s contemptuous and degrading that people think I’m utilizing drugs merely because I need a small aid to take attention of my household while I finish up my instruction. ” The 4th Amendment of the
United States Constitution provinces:

The right of the people to be secure in their individuals. houses. documents. and effects. against unreasonable hunts and ictuss. shall non be violated. and no warrants shall publish. but upon likely cause. supported by curse or avowal. and peculiarly depicting the topographic point to be searched. and the individuals or things to be seized ( Cornell University Law School Legal Information Institute ) . The construct of the 4th amendment is to protect two basic freedoms – the right to privateness and freedom from random hunt and ictus. ( Cornell University Law School Legal Information Institute ) . Twenty-eight provinces have proposed drug proving public aid. harmonizing the National Conference of State Legislature. Utah has passed statute law necessitating appliers to finish a written questionnaire testing for drug usage. Georgia passed statute law necessitating drug trials for all appliers. The Louisiana House endorsed random drug-testing of 20 per centum of the state’s public assistance receivers. Ohio is sing a pilot plan to prove public assistance receivers. Florida’s drug proving jurisprudence required appliers to pay for their trials and so would be reimbursed if the consequences proved negative ( Prah ) . Federal or province Torahs that require suspicionless drug proving for eligibility to have public aid may be capable to constitutional challenge. Constitutional challenges are aimed towards privateness and unreasonable hunt. For hunts to be sensible. they by and large must be based on intuition. unless a “special need” can be shown that may let for an exclusion.

Public aid plans do non needfully make these particular demands grounded in public safety that the Supreme Court has recognized in the yesteryear ( Carpenter ) . There has merely been judicial proceeding initiated in two provinces where the Torahs require suspicionless drug proving – Florida where the U. S. District Court issued an injunction to halt testing and Michigan where several persons were granted a impermanent injunction. A figure of other appliers in Florida chose non to subject to drug testing. Because appliers are non required to explicate why they chose non to subject to the trials. there is no statistical informations as to the grounds why. Advocates for proving believe it is because appliers knew they would neglect the trial. However. oppositions province that the logical thinking could be because appliers may non hold been able to afford the trials or because proving sites were non easy accessible ( The Assoicated Press ) . It has been suggested that drug maltreatment is a major cause of public assistance. However. there is merely grounds. based on secondhand information. to back up this. If drug usage among welfare participants were reduced to the degrees of non-participants. public assistance engagement would worsen by about one per centum ( Kaestner ) . A study from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism provinces. “Proportions of public assistance receivers utilizing. mistreating or dependant on intoxicant or illicit drugs are consistent with proportions of both the grownup U. S. population and grownups who do non have welfare” ( National Institute of Health ) . The research workers found the rate of drug maltreatment and/or dependence among welfare receivers to fall between 1. 3 and 3. 6 per centum. as opposed to a rate of 1. 5 per centum within the general population. Datas from the National Household Survey of Drug Abuse approximately coincides with these findings. with the rate of drug dependence among welfare receivers being about 4 per centum. Further. the information suggests that no more than one in five public assistance receivers used illegal drugs in any given twelvemonth ; half of those holding used merely marijuana ( Budd ) . The grounds from these three surveies shows that although drug usage is tied to homeless and welfare engagement. proportionately to the general population there is non a important difference. Finally. in the survey by Kaestner. he suggests that for intents of cut downing public assistance. public plans should concentrate their attempts on something besides drug usage ( Kaestner ) . There is the belief that proving public assistance appliers and receivers will cut down the payment of benefits to people who are botching the financess. In a 2011 article from the Tampa Tribune. Whittenburg studies. with the mean cost of trial being about $ 30. the province would owe $ 28. 000 – $ 43. 000 in reimbursements for appliers who passed trials monthly. The province would salvage about $ 32. 000 to $ 48. 000 for rejected appliers. presuming 20 to 30 people failed the trial monthly. Welfare recipients receive an norm of $ 134 per month. so the province would salvage about $ 2600 to $ 3300 which the jilted appliers wouldn’t receive.

Over a one twelvemonth period. which is the disqualification period for one failed trial. the province could salvage $ 32. 000 to $ 48. 000 yearly on the appliers rejected in a individual month. The net nest eggs would be $ 3. 400 to $ 8. 200 yearly on one month’s worth of jilted appliers. Over 12 months. the money saved on all rejected appliers would add up to $ 40. 800- $ 98. 400 for the hard currency aid plan that province analysts have predicted will be $ 178 million this financial twelvemonth ( Whittenburg ) . In a 2012 article from the New York Times. Alvarez reports that during the period that the Florida province jurisprudence was in consequence that required drug trials for public assistance appliers. there was no direct nest eggs. It found merely a few drug users and didn’t affect the figure of applications. Harmonizing to the jurisprudence. appliers who passed the drug trial were reimbursed. an norm of $ 30 for the cost of proving. Negative proving therefore cost the province a little more than $ 118. 000. This alone is more than the cost of benefits to those who failed the trial. Ultimately. this turns out to be a cost to the province of an excess $ 45. 780 ( Alvarez ) . In order to debar any farther tribunal proceedings initiated by complainants who believe their 4th amendment rights have been violated and avert dearly-won proving plans. it would be prudent for the Federal authorities to demand linguistic communication that explicitly prohibits the usage of suspicionless drug proving in order to have money from federally funded plans. Rather. authorities functionaries should refocus their attempts in the battle against drugs to the recovery from substance maltreatment of the general populace instead than aiming a specific group of people. viz. welfare receivers. Citizens should petition their provinces representatives to vote against proposed Torahs that support drug testing. Further. those representatives should seek to supplement bing or fund new intervention plans with the dollars saved by extinguishing drug proving plans for public assistance appliers and receivers. Another measure to solidify a stance against suspicionless proving would be an amendment to the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act ( PRWORA ) to include linguistic communication that explicitly prohibits suspicionless proving. Given that the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism studies that substance maltreatment is no more prevalent in public assistance appliers and receivers than the general population ( National Institute of Health ) so there is no footing for proving as a status for having benefits. Relief of budgetary concerns is non guaranteed by the decrease of caseloads due to positive trials ( Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation ) . Where challenged. tribunals have determined that suspicionless testing is a misdemeanor of the 4th Amendment ( Schaberg ) . North Carolina’s Governor. after blackballing a measure to implement drug proving. stated. “Drug proving …applicants
… could take to inconsistent application … That’s a formula for authorities overreach and unneeded authorities invasion. This is non a smart manner to battle drug maltreatment. Similar attempts in other provinces have proved to be expensive for taxpayers and did small to really assist fight drug dependence. ” ( Smith )

Bibliography
Alvarez. Lizette. “No Savingss Are Found From Welfare Drug Tests. ” The New York Times 18 April 2012: A14. Bloom. Rachel. “Poor Peoples Have Rights Too. ” 12 October 2011. American Civil Liberties Union. 3 August 2013 & lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //www. aclu. org/blog/criminal-law-reform-racial-justice/poor-people-have-rights-too & gt ; . Budd. Jordan C. “Pledge Your Body for Your Bread: Welfare. Drug Testing. and the Inferior Fourth Amendment. ” 2011. William & A ; Mary Bill of Rights Journal. 7 August 2013 & lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //scholarship. jurisprudence. wm. edu/cgi/viewcontent. cgi? article=1576 & A ; context=wmborj & gt ; . Carley. French republics. Drug Testing Welfare Recipients: A Review of Potential Costs and Savings. Lansing. 2012. Carpenter. David H. “Constitutional Analysis of Suspicionless Drug Testing Requirements for the Receipt of Governmental Benefits. ” Report. 2013. Cornell University Law School Legal Information Institute. Fourth Amendment. n. d. 5 August 2013 & lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //www. jurisprudence. Cornell. edu/constitution/fourth_amendment & gt ; . — . Fourth Amendment. n. d. 5 August 2013 & lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //www. jurisprudence. Cornell. edu/wex/fourth_amendment & gt ; . Debate. com. Should person having public assistance be drug tested? n. d. Iowa State University Study Abroad Center. Stereotypes. 7 June 2011. 21 Augusr 2013 & lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //www. Celt. iastate. edu/international/Stereotypes3. hypertext markup language & gt ; . Kaestner. Robert. “Drug Use and AFDC Participation: Is There a Connection? ” May 1996. the National Bureau of Economic Reearch. 6 August 2013 & lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //www. nber. org/papers/w5555 & gt ; . National Coalition for the Homeless. “Substance Abuse and Homelessness. ” July 2009. National Coalition for the Homeless. 6 August 2013 & lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //www. nationalhomeless. org/factsheets/addiction. pdf & gt ; . National Institute of Health. “NIAAA Researchers Estimate Alcohol and Drug Use. Abuse. and Dependence Among Welfare Recipients. ” 23 October 1996. National Institute on Alocohol Abuse and Alocoholism. 7 August 2013