Should Welfare Recipients Be Tested for Drugs? >
The Result Could Well Be More Drug Addiction
Require drug testing only of welfare applicants with a history of substance abuse
December 15, 2011
About Lawrence M. Mead:
Lawrence M. Mead is professor of Politics and Public Policy at New York University and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. His books helped lay the basis for welfare reform.
Florida recently enacted a law requiring that applicants for welfare take and pass a drug test to qualify for benefits. Should government make such a demand? I take a moderate position on this issue.
In general, it is permissible to place conditions on welfare benefits. The Supreme Court has held that to do this is not coercive, because accepting the benefits is voluntary. That is why the work requirements that welfare reform attached to benefits were never seriously challenged in court. However, recipients may not be asked to give up basic constitutional rights to get aid, for example the right to free speech.
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In October, a federal judge suspended the Florida law on grounds that it might infringe the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures. The state expects to appeal. Should the courts finally rule against it, the drug test requirement would clearly be impermissible.
Even if the law is constitutional, however, it may be unwise. The point of welfare reform was to turn assistance into a work program. Welfare would still help people in need, but adult recipients were expected to look for jobs and take other steps toward work as a condition of aid. To demand that applicants be clean of drugs would keep some people off welfare who could not work because of their drug habit. But it would also exclude some users who might quit drugs as part of a plan to become employable. The result could well be more drug addiction—and less work—than otherwise.
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I would require drug testing only of welfare applicants with a history of substance abuse, not all of them. The demand would then be legally more defensible. And rather than exclude users completely, I would allow them onto aid, if otherwise eligible, provided they entered treatment and left drugs within a few months. Coming clean would become part of a rehabilitation plan leading to employment. This would be more lenient than Florida, but it could well be more effective in reducing drug use and promoting work.
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- Other Arguments
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#11012215
Yes — We ought to provide aid on the basis of reciprocal obligation
ROBERT RECTOR, Senior Research Fellow in Domestic Policy at the Heritage Foundation
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#2719197
Yes — Why pay someone not to work when he has voluntarily taken himself out of the hiring pool?
JACK KINGSTON, U.S. Representative, Georgia's 1st District
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#3614175
Yes — We are overdue to renew welfare reform efforts and make additional gains
DAVID VITTER, U.S. Senator, Louisiana
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#5412680
No — Drug testing welfare recipients is an intrusion into private lives not consistent with U.S. values
PETER CAPPELLI, George W. Taylor Professor of Management at the Wharton School and Director of Wharton's Center for Human Resources
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#6240604
No — Welfare recipients are no more likely to have drug problems than anyone else
MATTHEW BODIE, Professor and Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development at Saint Louis University School of Law
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#7277647
No — The assumption that people on public assistance use drugs at a higher rate than the general population is erroneous
VANITA GUPTA, Deputy Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union
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#8234614
No — Suggesting welfare recipients are worthy of suspicion unfairly singles the group out for disdain
JOY MOSES, Senior Policy Analyst with the Poverty and Prosperity Program at the Center for American Progress
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#9250657
No — Drug testing perpetuates myths and scapegoats the unemployed
CHRISTINE L. OWENS, Executive Director of the National Employment Law Project
