Should you have to take a drug test to get TANF?

I don't think there's a lot of poor people who do drugs. It's pretty expensive, isn't it? More people are probably addicted to alcohol, if they're abusers at all.

Anyway, a quick search shows that there's a bunch of states considering this. Illinois is one. It passed, I think, in Michigan, but the ACLU filed suit and the testing never actually got started.

The Florida governor must have felt the heat -- he sold the company and the sale closes some time this month. Can't remember the name of it, but it was also not allowed to bid on the contract for the welfare testing. I think that's why the Ethics Board in Florida felt they had to clear him on those charges. Still smells, though.

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....and now I have to rally up my child to get her a pertussis vaccination!

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@CalamityJane,

CalamityJane wrote:

Cyclo, you seem to forget that taking drugs is against the law. If you engage
in criminal activity, you have to live with the consequences.

The consequence is that you get tried in a court of law and held responsible for your crimes. If that doesn't happen, your civil rights remain perfectly intact.

While you may have a different opinion on how it should be, I can't emphasize enough that the law is 100% clear on this point.

Let me ask - since drugs are illegal, why do you think that YOU shouldn't undergo random testing every year? I'm quite sure you qualify for one tax break or another, which is essentially no different than what the gov't is doing for these families. You don't think that would be a violation of your rights, forcing you to come in for drug testing?

Cycloptichorn

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@Irishk,

Irishk wrote:

I don't think there's a lot of poor people who do drugs. It's pretty expensive, isn't it? More people are probably addicted to alcohol, if they're abusers at all.

Nope - marijuana is cheap, and that's what tests like this are designed to catch.

Quote:

Anyway, a quick search shows that there's a bunch of states considering this. Illinois is one. It passed, I think, in Michigan, but the ACLU filed suit and the testing never actually got started.

The Florida governor must have felt the heat -- he sold the company and the sale closes some time this month. Can't remember the name of it, but it was also not allowed to bid on the contract for the welfare testing. I think that's why the Ethics Board in Florida felt they had to clear him on those charges. Still smells, though.

I had read that he transferred control to his wife. Got a link on the sale?

Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

Link

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@Irishk,

danke

Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

Okay, let's be clear here: per the article, the company itself is being sold, but Scott didn't SELL his shares - he gave them to his wife (a legal farce that I can't believe flies). He stands to profit off of the sale. Right?

Cycloptichorn

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@JPB,

Misuse of drugs when you have children, adopted or not, is reprehensible. To me and many others, use of so called recreational drugs is not in itself a bad thing, no matter the legalities at present. In my experience, a huge percentage of the people I knew in the sixties and seventies used drugs of some sort, including alcohol, which certainly can be abused, though legal.

I'm firming up on the side of NO. I can see individuals being tested for cause, but not when applying for Tanf (whatever that is) if all other qualifications are documented in some way.

I do know of a child, one dear to me, whose mother spent her child support money on drugs and had the child 'farmed out' to questionable friends. I didn't learn this until later or I'd have been riding a horse into a courtroom. The mother was a piece of work, which I don't want to go into. But in that situation, there should have been more oversight, starting with the dad and an attorney.

As much as I know the ill effects of possible expenditure of the money on other than the child, I can't subscribe to blanket testing of all applying for tanf.

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@Cycloptichorn,

If they tested everyone with children for marijuana in the 60's or 70's, we'd have had a major housing problem.

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@Cycloptichorn,

No, I'm pretty sure he's sold all of his shares, as well. To some investment company in New York. That was in another Florida paper, I believe...reported in April. The Tampa paper was just reporting that the sale will close this month.

Want me to find the other link, too?

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Just in case he comes back and says yes Wink

Rick Scott Sells Stake in Solantic

Quote:

SCOTT FINDS BUYER FOR SOLANTIC - "Two weeks after insisting he was 'not involved in that company,' Gov. Rick Scott finalized a deal Wednesday to sell Solantic Inc., the Jacksonville chain of urgent care clinics he founded. Scott's sale of the company comes as he attempts to distance himself from repeated conflict-of-interest questions about whether the company he started in 2001 — and hoped to develop into a national chain — would benefit from the aggressive health care changes he wants state lawmakers to approve. The sale to Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe makes the New York investment firm the largest shareholder in the company. In 2007, the firm bought a 30 percent share in Solantic when it committed up to $100 million to the company. Two of the firm's partners, Thomas A. Scully and D. Scott Mackesy, sit on the board of directors. Scott put the value of his majority share of the company at $62 million last year in the financial disclosure filed as part of his race. Scott agreed to sell his holdings for less than that amount, but neither side would provide the exact figure of the deal, expected to close April 29." St. Petersburg Times

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@Irishk,

Irishk wrote:

No, I'm pretty sure he's sold all of his shares, as well. To some investment company in New York. That was in another Florida paper, I believe...reported in April. The Tampa paper was just reporting that the sale will close this month.

Want me to find the other link, too?

Well, I'm interested now, but don't kill yourself looking for it or anything; I'll look too.

EDIT: Oh, well, there ya go.

Cycloptichorn

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@Irishk,

How can he sell shares he doesn't (or claimed he doesn't) control?

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@ehBeth,

He's the govenator!

I dunno how any of that stuff works. There's a bunch of lawyers on here, I think, though.

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@Cycloptichorn,

Quote:

Sorry, but they do not. It's fundamentally wrong to say that your civil rights cease to exist because you choose to adopt a child, and even worse to compare this to people who are getting assistance from the State for some reason.

Well I needed assistance from the state too. And here's what I was willing to do to get it:

We peed in a cup.
We bled in a tube.
We opened our ENTIRE medical, financial, educational, and family history.
We provided the names and phone numbers of every person in our family.
We provided 5 unrelated references to our character.
We sat through several hours of interviews.
We had people in our home to peer under our rugs, literally and metaphorically.

All that was simply to get an "okay". Then we had to prove ourselves to the state.

There are some days that I think every parent should have to go through that before they can have a kid because I know how bad a few months (or years) of shitty parenting can affect a kid for his/her entire life.

Not all tax breaks involve the care and custody of a child.

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I'm always amazed at the amount the American people have let the government invade their privacy. Your laws are already far laxer than Canada's. This is another example of how a government gets the public to buy into more insidious practices.
For every dollar saved because a family was tossed off benefits, how many dollars are exponentially spent on case workers, group homes, foster families, shelters, aids, government officials and on and on. I don't know what the average welfare check is in the US, but it's hardly a fortune up here.
And who's to say that someone who smokes a joint makes a lousy parent? It's illegal, yes, but so is speeding. Do we take the right to parent away based on a person driving record? Maybe we should.
How about cheating on taxes? A drug test isn't going to pinpoint a drunk who beats his wife, or someone who bets on the horses.
Benefits should be a help up, not a lifestyle and not a punishable offense.

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@boomerang,

You needed assistance from the state, because you made a conscious and affirmative choice to need that assistance. Right? I mean, perhaps I misunderstand what you're talking about, but you made a decision to (adopt, IIRC) a child. The state holds the licensing requirements for doing so, which you listed.

Families who are signing up for TANF are presumably doing so because there isn't enough money to feed themselves and their children. It's not the same as what you are describing at all.

Not only that, but I don't believe it will be at all effective at solving any problem - anyone who uses drugs is just going to find a way around this, either by having the money given to someone else or just sobering up long enough to make the test - and it will be expensive. I don't understand the logic behind this decision, and that makes me really upset at the fact that people would casually toss away the rights of others.

Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

I made a conscious decision?..... hmmmmm...... I wasn't looking to adopt.

I woke up one morning and had a nearly 2 year old living in my house.

I could have turned him over to the state and let the taxpayers deal with him.

But I didn't.

So I guess I was semi-conscious.

CJane could have left Little Jane in foster care and let the taxpayers have their way with her but she didn't.

We both needed assistance from the state -- we needed their stamp of approval and we were willing to do the things necessary to get that.

Does that make us bad people?

Does that make us unconcerned about our civil rights or our privacy?

We had to prove to the state that we were decent people who wanted what is best for a kid. What's wrong with that?

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@boomerang,

Yes, exactly, boomer is right! The process any adoptive parent has to go
through is at times humiliating, especially when they come to your house and look into just about every corner if it's child proof, and when it comes to
children, I fully cooperate and agree that their welfare and well being comes
first and the state should do everything in their power to protect children,
and if it means that TANF recipients have to undergo a drug test, so be it!

By the way, in addition to a drug test, I had an HIV test done as well.

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@JPB,

JPB wrote:

There's no such thing as free of charge. Somebody is going to pay for these tests. It's either going to be the applicants or the taxpayers. Let's say there are 300 applicants/month and the tests cost $50 plus overhead costs of another $25 (probably low). That's $22,500 per month ($270,000/year) just in testing costs even if they don't find anyone who tests positive. What's the benefit to the taxpayer to pay those $$$ for testing just to "potentially" find people who test positive for drugs?

Yes, JPB, it will cost the taxpayer as well, but we cannot think in those terms, as a prisoner cost us plenty of tax dollars too, yet we find it necessary
to separate him from society. We also send drug users to rehab centers
on tax payers money without knowing if indeed it will benefit this person in the long run - the states do it anyway!

It's not just to find out who "potentially" is testing positive, I would hope
it is a first step to get social services involved and monitor any and/or all
children in that household where drugs play a prominent role.

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Should you have to take a drug test to get TANF?

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