This is really shallow thinking. It can be summed up as: Drug users who get caught are stupid and stupid people don't deserve help. Furthermore, you give no consideration to the cost or effectiveness of trying to implement it. This sort of thinking is just an appeal to basic moral outrage, nothing more.Originally Posted by RL...
I completely agree with this statement when you limit it to those that use drugs or are multi offending criminals. Both of these situations are proof you are not making an attempt to become a productive member of society.
The cost is negligible.
http://www.medicaldisposables.us/pro...9&cat=3&page=1
Implementing it is easy. These types of cups are designed in a way that you dont need any kind of special training to use them and read them correctly. Come in to pick up your check, piss in the cup and pass, you get your check. Fail the test you are asked to leave. Want to bring your kids into the equation? That works too, DCFS can meet you at your apartment or house to discuss the ramifications on your kids.
It is an outrage that people think the govt should take away my money just to hand it over to a junkie who will use it on drugs instead of its intended purpose.
I disagree that drug use is proof of not making an attempt to be a productive member of society. If you know even one productive member of society who uses drugs then you invalidate that conclusion. Further, I disagree the purpose of the program is only to help feed those who "attempt to become a productive member of society."
Neglibible? $10 * 40 million people = 400 million dollars EVERY month! (not counting biological waste disposal and administrative time). It's no foreign war but people argue over a lot less. The average person receives about $130/month in food assistance so that extra cost is nearly 10% of the benefit.
data source: http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/34SNAPmonthly.htm
Easy if you don't care about false positives and safe disposal. Then again "easy" is a relative term so it's pointless to argue about semantics.
Failing a drug test doesn't make you a junkie. Nor does it prove you spent that money on drugs. I'm not saying it never happens but you need to present evidence if I am to accept your conclusion that it is wide spread (let alone the 100% correlation you imply).
Just smoking a blunt doesnt mean anything. Smoking a blunt, while you are sucking the govt tit because you cannot find a decent job, does show you are making no attempt to better your position.
[QUOTE=bu villain;39303318]Neglibible? $10 * 40 million people = 400 million dollars EVERY month! (not counting biological waste disposal and administrative time). It's no foreign war but people argue over a lot less. The average person receives about $130/month in food assistance so that extra cost is nearly 10% of the benefit.
data source: http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/34SNAPmonthly.htm
You you notice, when you purchase larger quantities the price goes down nearly 50%. I have also never said anything about testing everyone every month. I believe in random testing based off the last 2 numbers of your SSN or tax ID.
What biological waste costs? Dump the piss down the toilet, rinse the cup and toss it in the trash. The administrative time is about 10 minutes.
False positives can happen even in a lab. A simple fail safe can be to use half of the urine for the actual test and the other half to send off to the lab in the even of a positive reading.
Failing a drug test that you are is coming makes you a junkie. Directly, selling stamps for drugs, or indirectly, using cash to buy drugs instead of food, you are still using the govt to subsidize your drugs. So yes, there is a 100% correlation.
What if you are smoking a blunt after your third job interview of the day? Or replace "blunt" with "beer". Is that really the difference between being a guy just down on his luck and being a lazy lowlife junkie?
Sure cost per test could be decreased but you must also account for the cost of administration (10 minutes per test you say) and the water costs for millions of extra toilet flushes, paying people to wash out the cups, trash costs for millions of tests. These are all small things that add up to significant money when you are talking about millions of tests performed every month. Btw, I feel sorry for the person who has to wash piss out of cups for a living haha.
Absolutely, but now you are adding another layer of costs. I never meant to imply drug testing can not be done. I simply want to see a good/cost benefit analysis that includes all the costs. You can't just ignore these costs by saying "they are negligible" without any analysis and furthermore, you haven't given any proof of a significant benefit beyond your personal moral argument. I am willing to be convinced but you have to offer more than opinion and sweeping generalizations.
Either the tests are randomly performed on a small portion of the population so people don't know they are coming or you do it to everyone on some regular basis in which case costs will be much higher. You can't argue both ways.
In the end, if some drug users kids can still get some food subsidies even if it also subsidizes some people's drug habits, I can live with that. It's the problem with living in the real world instead of a moral meritocracy.
My issue with the drug tests has very little to do with moral outrage and more to do with A) Engaging in an illegal activity while on gov't assistance and B) Using money for a "luxury" item while on gov't assistance. If smoking marijuana was legal, I'd have no issue with people using it aside from the fact that it would still be a "luxury", not a necessity. I feel like gov't assistance programs should be a last resort for someone to be able to survive and/or support their family, i.e. if you have cut off your cable/satellite tv, home internet, cell phones, quit smoking, quit drinking etc, then you should be able to qualify to receive temporary assistance to help you get by. These programs should provide for the basic needs to live, period, nothing more nothing less. You don't need to watch pay tv, surf the internet, talk on your cell phone, smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol to survive. If you have the money to do those things then you are not at the point where money needs to be taken away from anyone else to support you, you need to evaluate your priorities and focus your money on surviving, if you have done that and there is still just absolutely no way that you can survive then I have no problem with a temporary safety net for people.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote