WELFARE DRUG TESTS RIPPED

The Daily Bread Food Bank wants the provincial government to eat its
plan for force welfare recipients to undergo drug tests.

Its stance follows the release yesterday of a study by the food bank
that says dope use is "typically lower among welfare recipients and
low-income people" than the average Ontarians.

"Who's surprised?" said Daily Bread executive director Sue Cox, who
suggested most poor people don't have the cash to support drug and
drinking habits.

The study says welfare users make up less than a quarter of adult
drug users in Ontario, and 50% fewer welfare users drink daily than
non-welfare adults.

"If (the poor) don't have money to feed themselves, they won't spend
it on luxuries like alcohol and cigarettes," said Dr. Rick Csiernik,
a University of Western Ontario social work professor.

Csiernik, also an addiction studies teacher at Hamilton's McMaster
University, helped Daily Bread design the survey.

After polling only food-bank users, Daily Bread compared its 2001
data with a 1998 Addiction Research Foundation report on the general
Ontario population, which said drug abuse is highest among Ontario's
wealthiest.

The bank says Tory-proposed drug-testing creates a hostile public
perception of the poor.

Queen's Park, however, said it's still confident about mandatory
substance tests.

"It's something we are going ahead with," said Dan Miles, press
secretary to Community and Social Services Minister John Baird. "The
minister is not about to turn his back on anybody who is on welfare
and needs help," Miles said, adding that the government campaigned on
the issue when it swept to a second majority in 1999.

In their study, Daily Bread reps randomly polled 800 people
throughout 60 food banks in the GTA. Sitting face to face with their
questioners, respondents were asked about their drug and alcohol
intake -- a method the Food Bank admits isn't perfect.

Miles declined comment on the study.