UNLIKELY SUPPORT FOR DRUG TESTS ON WELFARE APPLICANTS SERVICES:

Many Of Those Seeking Aid Favor Michigan Plan, Citing Accountability.
Critics Say It's A Rights Issue.

Outrageous, the advocates say. Insulting.

Michigan's plan to test all welfare applicants for drugs is "a vicious
assault on their constitutional rights," a cruel case of treating the poor
like criminals simply because they are poor.

To which many of those very same poor reply: So?

For to them, the plan makes a whole lot of sense.

They call it long overdue.

Even as the American Civil Liberties Union prepares to take the state to
court this month in a quest to block the drug tests, many of the men and
women who rely on welfare say it's about time the government held them
responsible for what they do with their taxpayer handouts.

They've seen too many people trade food stamps for crack or blow welfare
checks on booze, while babies at home go hungry. It sickens them. So they
welcome Michigan's drive to be the first state in the nation to require
urine tests of all new welfare applicants and a random number of those
receiving aid as well.

Under Michigan's plan, those refusing to comply will not get benefits.
Those testing positive must enter treatment--in a program selected and
funded by the state--to keep receiving government checks.

That's fine by Sophia Bowman, 31, who works part time with the mentally
impaired but counts on welfare to help support her two daughters. "They
should do random drug screens, like they do on the job," she said. "It's
only fair."

Recalling the days when it took all her will to buy a few groceries for her
seven children before spending every cent of her welfare cash on heroin,
Pam Nelson had to agree: "At first I got defensive when I heard about the
tests. But you've got to stop the circle of madness."

Testing Seen as Small Price to Pay:

Clean for five years now thanks to state-funded treatment, the 37-year-old
Nelson said urinating in a cup seemed a small price to pay for a chance to
sober up and get steady cash aid. "When you think about it, they're not
asking too much."

Or are they?

Michigan's program has infuriated welfare advocates across the nation. The
ACLU has filed suit on behalf of two women who deemed urine tests a
humiliating invasion of their privacy.

And a federal judge last month blocked the program at least until a Dec. 20
court hearing, calling it "very likely unconstitutional" because it
subjects a broad class of people to unreasonable searches without any
suspicion that they are in fact abusing drugs.

"While it is clearly in the public interest to have all members of society
drug-free and working in gainful employment, these goals cannot be pursued
at the expense of the Constitution," District Judge Victoria A. Roberts
ruled in a scathing rebuke to the state.

Opponents of the drug tests contend that there are many less invasive--and
more effective--ways of nudging substance abusers into treatment programs.

Some California counties have adopted a marketing approach, with
advertisements that tout recovery programs as the best way to get a
battered life back on track. The goal is to shake addicts into voluntarily
seeking help.

And at least two dozen states use clinical observation or diagnostic
questionnaires to identify the welfare applicants most likely to be abusing
drugs or alcohol. (In some states, these at-risk individuals are required
to take urine tests--and enter treatment, if necessary--before receiving
benefits. But only Michigan plans to test every applicant without first
screening them for probable cause.)

Although questionnaires may seem a feeble way to track down
addicts--there's nothing, after all, to stop a respondent from
lying--policy analysts say they really do work.

Urine tests catch only those who have used cocaine, heroin or amphetamines
within the last few days, or marijuana within the last several weeks. And
they don't screen at all for alcohol.

The questionnaires, in contrast, probe suspicious patterns of behavior.
They don't ask straight out: Are you an addict? Instead, they seek to
define potential substance abuse with questions such as: Have friends ever
urged you to cut down on your drinking? Do you ever need an eye-opener in
the morning? Do you ever feel guilty about your drug use?

Surprisingly, perhaps, such questions tend to elicit honest answers--and to
give a better picture of the scope of any problem than a onetime urine
test, experts contend.

An ongoing study around Jacksonville, Fla., for instance, found that 20% of
welfare applicants identify themselves as probable substance abusers
through their answers to questionnaires. But just 5% test positive on
urinalysis. Michigan's first month of urine screens in three pilot
regions--before the court suspended the program--found 8% of applicants
testing positive, nearly all for marijuana.

"All the urine test tells you is that someone used this substance within
this time period," said Nancy Young, who analyzes substance abuse issues
for Children and Family Futures, a California think tank. "It doesn't tell
you if this is someone who's addicted, someone who needs help, or if the
drug use is even a barrier to their employment."

Michigan officials have said they did not consider other methods of drug
screening but settled immediately on urine tests as the most direct and
practical approach--and the one used most often in the private sector.

"We'll look at what other [states] do and we'll learn from them," Michigan
Gov. John Engler said. But urine tests, he added, mesh well with the
state's goal of pushing welfare recipients toward jobs. "Our objective is
to have people come to a private employer and say, 'I've been tested, I'm
clean, I'm ready to work,' " Engler said.

Applicants Called 'Captive Audience'

Michigan's constant references to the private sector, where many employers
mandate drug tests, outrage the ACLU and other critics.

In the private sector, they argue, people have a choice: If they don't like
the idea of drug tests, they can look for a job that doesn't require them.

But welfare applicants are "essentially a captive audience," Roberts ruled.
Desperate for money to feed their families, they have nowhere to turn but
the government--and thus are forced to submit to a test that invades their
privacy and degrades their honor by implying they use illegal drugs.

"I didn't think you were supposed to treat human beings like this,"
complained Barbara Whitfield, 61, a part-time school aide who relies on
welfare to raise three grandchildren.

"They treat you like they own you," grumbled Brenda Lindsey, a mother of
six on welfare for 11 years.

To Engler, this argument is nonsense.

Governor Defends Testing Program:

Poor people do have a choice, he insists: If they don't like the drug
tests, "there's no requirement that they come in and apply for welfare."

And if they have no other source of income?

"Well, apparently they have the money to buy drugs," he said.

If folks are clean, they shouldn't object to proving it, Engler reasons. If
they're not, they should welcome treatment "rather than asking the people
who are working and paying taxes . . . to support their habit."

Plus, a urine test "is no more degrading or humiliating than what some of
these people do to get drugs," argued Beatrice Taylor, a recovering heroin
addict who spent 25 years on welfare.

Bristling at the barbs from human rights activists, Engler and his backers
seek to cast their program as altruistic, not punitive.

They insist it will help poor children by ensuring that parents don't waste
their meager income on drugs. And they proudly note that the pilot program
provided full funding to treat all who tested positive--even through
relapse after relapse. (Those who failed to comply with the treatment would
have their benefits cut 25% for four months, then terminated altogether.)

Engler also points out that the state already has addressed other problems
that often trip up those trying to get off the dole.

Michigan subsidizes some day care, for instance, and even buys cars for
some welfare recipients. Although advocates say poor women need better
counseling for depression and domestic violence, Engler contends existing
programs must be working, as Michigan's welfare rolls have plunged more
than 60% since reforms began seven years ago. The drug tests, he said,
address one of the most pressing issues for the 80,000 families still on
public aid.

"This project really represented a golden, exceptional opportunity . . .
[because it] offered any and all coverage for treatment," agreed Jerry
Frank, director of the Berrien County welfare agency in southwest Michigan.

Skeptics, however, doubt the state Legislature will continue to fund full
treatment for addicts if the drug testing program expands statewide, as
intended by 2003. (A nonpartisan analysis estimated the cost at $79 million
a year.)

They worry too that the people who most need help--those who refuse to face
their addictions--will shun treatment and thus lose benefits, penalizing
their children above all.

"It will have a very chilling effect on people applying for assistance,"
predicted Sharon Parks, senior researcher at the Michigan League for Human
Services advocacy group.

Since no study has ever documented pervasive drug abuse among Michigan's
welfare population, Parks and others accuse state lawmakers of picking on
the poor because they make an easy--and politically popular--target, and
not out of any valid social concern.

If lawmakers are so concerned about people squandering taxpayer money on
drugs, they ask, why not demand urine samples of every college student on
state scholarship? Or every senior citizen on Medicaid?

Or every farmer requesting crop subsidies? "Singling out welfare folks for
[drug] tests," the Detroit Free Press editorialized last month, "is
baseless and pure discrimination."

Yet many of those most affected disagree.

In random interviews outside a Detroit welfare office, many aid recipients
said taxpayer money should not support junkies. If it takes a dragnet to
flush out the addicts, so be it.

"I'm all for it," said Ben Stokes, 35. "I don't feel violated in any way."

Given all they must submit to for welfare--the paperwork, the home visits,
the classes, the interviews--a drug test now and then, conducted in the
privacy of a medical clinic, scarcely seemed like an imposition.

Caseworkers "are going to be in your business anyway. It's like you're
married to them," sighed 30-year-old Evelya Mclaurin. The way she looked at
it, adding a urine test could do only good: "It may help a lot of people
hurry up and get off drugs."