Drug testing welfare recipients: Discuss

[Minimalist]

Or, they could just hit assholes like you on the head with a brick and steal your money.

You never think things through, do you Drippy?

No wonder you're a xtian. It's all you can handle.

[Drich]

Or, they could just hit assholes like you on the head with a brick and steal your money.

You never think things through, do you Drippy?

No wonder you're a xtian. It's all you can handle.

That is what stand your ground is all about Minnie.

[Minimalist]

Difficult choice.

You or some druggie?

Actually, it isn't a hard choice at all.

Go druggies.

[FlyingNarwhal]

I've got mixed feelings on this. I'm generally in favor of drug testing for welfare, and I would be in favor for testing for alcohol and cigarettes (if there is any way to positively test for them, most likely through hair). And I'm pro legalization of all drugs but if you got the money to spend on pot, alcohol, butts, or whatever, then you shouldn't be asking for assistance. That money could go to families that truly needs the money and don't spend the little they have frivolously. Of course it is tragic that there are children of these drug users that would be affected negatively, but ultimately that responsibility falls upon the parent not the state. I would like to see aid go directly to children if possible because it is unfair that they have to suffer because of their parent's mistakes, but I think that can be best done through food stamps and school lunch programs.

Here's what I would rather see. Drug testing for welfare, but if you fail the drug test instead of just getting denied access to welfare you would have the option to participate in a treatment program during which you would undergo regular drug tests in exchange for welfare.

I see this all like liver transplants. If you're on the list you're not allowed to drink and if you do you get dropped to the bottom of the list. There are a limited amount of livers to go around, and you have to prove that you are deserving of it because there are other people that need it. Sometimes hard decisions have to be made when someone doesn't comply.

[Mystical]

This is awesome! They should make this a nation wide policy.

It pushes people to reconcile or at least deal with their drug problems on one level or another, rather than enable them to continue unchecked. The rest of soceity WORKS under these conditions, why should the poor or even working poor not be subject to these very same rights and responsiablities?

I agree for cash assistance, that shit shouldn't just be handed to people. But food assist should never be conditional, ever. Certainly not for alcoholics when alcohol is LEgal and taxed by the state.
"Oh lets tax your addiction then when you're too hard up from that addiction: fuck you."

Note that only four people out of those 477 households actually got the treatment. Also notice that the implementation of said tests were scare tactics, nothing more--the lack of informing the testees that they'd receive the benefits if they go to treatment is a RED FLAG. You know what else is a red flag? The government over-stepping it's bounds. I can understand if it tested people with prior misdameanors or felonies or a history of drug or alcohol addiction. In all reality would you Drich, actually go pee in a cup for the government if you were out of work and needed food assistance? Or would you feel indignant that it's none of their goddamn business? It's none of their business, unless you've broken a law. Plain out, NOT their business. Their business is providing the support services needed to keep society running.

Here's the thing: you have poor families afraid of losing their kids. Plain and simple. All this is going to do is drive families on the fringe, down to the ground. And whose gonna catch them? Certainly not the Republicans, oh no. They're too busy pissing on people. Would you send your own children to foster care? No? then why expect others not to fight for their own, addiction or not? Their homes are typically better than a foster care situation, not to mention the giant influx of foster care this is going to cause. They already can't handle the burden of that the state faces already with adoption and fostering. No one's going to go get help because that would include endangering the coherence of their family units (and attaining possible legal issues), and family bonds are tight. Self-preservation is tighter--no one's going to go voluntarily say they have a drug problem and ensue legal troubles on themselves. Unfortunately thanks to biology: family bonds have proven to not be tighter than addiction, and granted there needs to be more oversight on childrens rights, but families none the less who are struggling already will now be left dead in the water.

So long as you understand you're standing your ground with starving children at your feet.

[Minimalist]

but if you fail the drug test instead of just getting denied access to welfare you would have the option to participate in a treatment program

Who is paying for the treatment programs?

http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/08/23/3...tment.html

The new state budget sliced funding to three state-run alcohol and drug abuse treatment centers by about $4.9 million each year for the next two years – a 12 percent reduction per year to each facility’s budget.

The three – Walter B. Jones Alcohol and Drug Addiction Treatment Center in Greenville, Julian F. Keith Center in Black Mountain and R.J. Blackley Center in Butner – are the only centers in the state that offer long-term treatment to adult addicts without the financial means to help themselves. Last year, they served about 4,300 people – an 11 percent decrease from 2009, according to a Department of Health and Human Services report.

“There’s no question it’s a substantial hit … These three treatment centers are cut to the bone as it is,” said Mark Ezzell, the executive director of Addiction Professionals of North Carolina.

[Mystical]

Here's my solution.
Provide non-repurcussions to people who seek treatment for addictions, and support mental health services which are the MAIN reason why anyone has that addiction in the first place: they're just self medicating. We're a nation of self medicators, because there's no alternative.
Temporarily pay towards peoples' rent directly, pay utilities directly, pay for food stamps which can only be used on food, gas stipends too.

More importantly: figure out why the fuck they don't have a job. Most of these programs require people apply for jobs weekly and to go to an 8hr course that gets their resume up to date. That's fair. However, Long term recipients should require more and more rigorous intervention, and at some point be referred to the street with nothing (if they so choose) or medical care and public support centers like community living and mental health services or disability for those who can't support themselves for mental or physical reasons, at which point substance abuse will be a mandatory treatment. Make homelessness illegal. Provide systems that weed through the homeless and put them in the proper programs such as mental illness or substance abuse programs, or working support systems. Bolster the city transportation systems to actually make work accessible for people without cars. All of these policies would create jobs btw.

Bolster the foster care oversight and application system, WATCH OUT for helpless kids (having checks on their well being through school or homeschooling mandatory attendance meetings), provide after school programs for free for low income families and since those programs usually run till 6pm: feed those kids dinner. This way before school, during school, and after school meals can be ensured and the children will not be paying for the adults' mistakes. Provide Clothes for those kids (fucking make prison inmates do shit like make clothes).
EDUCATE those kids effectively. Invest in our future generation that way because as things are we're just continuing a generational cycle that creates unhealthy, unproductive citizens. Every child --no exception--should have insurance. Period.

Speaking of insurance, Medicare and Medicaid cost so much because no one's overseeing the billing doctors offices are ensuing. No one's calling them on their bullshit treatment plans, and no one's saying "hey now lets actually cure people not bustle them around the system till they're bankrupt!". Who pays for those bankruptcies? Tax payers. Who then pays for support services because people lose everything? Tax payers. Who pays for ER visits by uninsured, bankrupt citizens? Yep, you guessed it.

While we're at it, why are prisons full to the brink with mentally ill or why are they allowed to procreate mental illness and create psychopathy? They don't reform shit. They cost plenty though, oh yeah they do. Homeless people even go out of their way to get into prison just to be taken care of. Then they become institutionalized and people re-offend just to stay in those walls. Must be the life, Breakfast, then Opera, then outdoor fun, then lunch, then free medical care, then dinner, then ass raping, then sleep. All while high as fuck on contraband. Yep, totally.
I say make them work for their board. But that's me.

In conclusion and Most importantly: Do shit that actually fucking matters, rather than standing there with your foot down firm wearing a sideways grin, being a sadistic asshole.

[Minimalist]

The republicunts don't want to pay for any of that either, Ms.Luckie. They'd rather throw them in jail so their corporate pals can get rich charging the states and municipalities for incarcerating them.

[Mystical]

They're paying for it anyways though. You're right, there's no incentives what with bankruptcies wiping slates clean (and paying big business) and bailouts and law enforcement spending billions on unwinnable (with current policies) wars, and penal system based slave societies, Corporation based slave towns, and big businesses making money off the peoples' destitution then turning around and lobbying more freedoms away.. All the while throwing out misinformation, using the citizens like Drich here to propagate their policies by appealing to the short term fulfillment of citizens like him by appeal to emotion and misdirection, successfully fooling the Drich-ites into believing they're not the ones being used and fucked over in the ass constantly by these people because the misdirectors are "advocating for """what's right""" (or appearing to propogate the small minded, short term policies that make Drich and those like him feel like they have power when they don't).

It's those middle men republicans too stupid to see the harm through their "stand your ground", "speak 'Merican", "Reality isn't reality cuz reality don't have god innit so fuck teaching reality in school!", "I need my goddamned gun goddamnit!", "Do what god and I say or this country can go to hell!", "The worlds ending anyways so fuck environment!", "The sick and poor are sucking the life out of us", "gays and women not in the kitchen are the reason our country is goin to hell in a handbasket!", "Hollywood and Marilyn Manson cause mass shootings not the mentally ill men with guns" , "If there's peace with the Arabs then the NEw WORLD ORDER is a comin, "the bible knows what's gonna happen so lets do everything we can based on the bible to halt progress---'

These moral warriors with their superiority complex disorder delusions, are actually the ones ruining America.

/rant

[Ryantology]

Drug testing should not happen, period. If you're sober and clear-headed while on the job, and your activities are not causing substantive harm to those around you, what you do at home is irrelevant.

Assistance fraud is far less prevalent than the poor-hating Teahadists would have you believe, and characterizing all recipients of assistance by the actions of a tiny minority is how the plutocracy pits poor, white Tea Party trash against all other forms of poor people, which is funny when you stop and consider that red states take more from the federal government than they pay in taxes to subsidize poor people voting against their best economic interests. D&C.