LAWMAKERS SHOULD DROP OFFENSIVE DRUG TESTING BILL

Michigan would violate civil liberties by singling out welfare
recipients for special screening The Detroit News

Drug testing of welfare recipients is offensive, intrusive and quite
possibly illegal. Yet some lawmakers in Lansing just won't abandon the
idea.

Five Republicans on the House Family and Children Services Committee
recently moved forward a bill that would allow social service workers
to require drug tests of welfare recipients whom they suspect of a
substance abuse problem.

This bill is certainly better than its 1999 predecessor, which would
have required testing of all recipients who applied for government
aid. But it's still wrong.

A federal court struck down the 1999 bill on grounds that it violated
the constitutionally protected privacy and due process rights of
welfare recipients. Subsequently, the state cut a deal with the
American Civil Liberties Union and other plaintiffs in the lawsuit in
which it agreed to require drug tests only when it had evidence of
drug use. In addition, it agreed to conduct a pilot test and report
back to the Legislature before calling for a statewide program.

The bill proposed by state Rep. Joanne Vorhees of Wyoming and her
colleagues, however, wants to begin a statewide drug-testing program
without a pilot test first - almost guaranteeing a legal challenge if
the Legislature adopts it.

The deeper problem with the proposal is that it is trying to solve a
problem that may not even exist. There might have been some rationale
for drug testing if welfare clients were more prone to substance abuse
than other groups - such as students and businesses - that also
receive government aid.

But data obtained from the brief period when the 1999 policy was in
effect found that 1 percent of the recipients had a problem with hard
drugs like cocaine and 8 percent had used drugs such as marijuana.
This is pretty much in line with the general population.

The pilot program would cost up to $7 million a year, an unnecessary
expense when the state is struggling to find a billion dollars to
balance its books.

A welfare drug testing program would have no impact on the state's
drug abuse problem, and would only serve to punish people for being on
public assistance.