States seek to link public assistance, drug testing

[upstatecajun]

South Carolina state Sen. Harvey Peeler was at a Chamber of Commerce meeting in January when the human resources director of one of the area’s major employers, textile manufacturer Hamrick Mills, told him the company was having trouble hiring some people from the unemployment rolls.

"They said they had potential employees that would come and apply and couldn’t pass the drug test,” Peeler says.

Peeler, a Republican who says he heard similar stories from other employers, introduced a bill Feb. 9 that would suspend unemployment checks to people who fail a drug test they must take to get a job.

South Carolina is among 27 states, including Florida, Massachusetts and Arizona, to consider legislation this year that would require recipients of various kinds of public assistance to pass drug tests, according to Meagan Dorsch of the National Conference of State Legislatures.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-04-17-drug-tests-state-legislatures-South-Carolina-.htm


http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Liberal-Ohioan/195130570504421

[bluestateguy]

1. And how much will that cost?

Some private company gets a fat government contract to do drug testing, by far and away wiping out any savings from the handful of people you might catch who test positive.

Although, I would have supported mandatory drug testing of all corporate CEOs whose companies got bailout money in 2008-09. I'd be okay with that.

[Arctic Dave]

2. Will it save money? Noooo.

Will it make money for the company doing the screening? Yeeees.

Waste of time and resources. If they want to save money they should make MJ legal.

[Duer 157099]

3. Only after we drug test EVERY elected official n/t

[butterfly77]

4. Lets,get this started...

in every state...Why in the hell aren't they drug tested anyway. They make the laws for all of us and they break everyone.

Another thing is we vote on whether they get raises or not. We should be able to vote to cut their pay...

[ThomCat]

5. This damned Boogieman again?

x(

"Drug-users on public assistance" are the new "welfare queens" of the Reagan era.

Conservatives Swear they are all for small government, but they'll implement a huge bureaucracy to drug test millions of people.

They way they are libertarians and want to protect personal liberties, but they want to have millions of poor people pee into a cup every few months. No, nothing invasive about that!

They claim that cutting government spending is their top priority, but they'll spend as much money as it takes to bankrupt services for the poor, especially if they get to demonize poor people, and minority poor people most of all, in the process.

Does anyone else here smell the overwhelming stench of Hypocrisy? :grr: