DRUGS AND RIGHTS

EVANSTON -- Professor Barbara Ransby should rethink her argument that
Michigan's new welfare laws are "trampling the rights of the poor"
(Commentary, June 11). Her logic contains three main flaws.

First, she claims the law will "punish" and "humiliate" welfare
recipients by having them undergo drug testing as a precondition to
receiving benefits. The law does nothing of the sort. In fact, if
welfare applicants test positive, they will be enrolled in a drug
treatment program--at public expense--and receive their welfare
payments. This is a progressive policy aimed at curing the disease of
drug abuse, not punishing a particular behavior.

Second, Ransby suggests that only the poor are subjected to drug
testing. In fact, many federal, state and municipal employees are
subjected to pre-employment drug screening as well as continuing
on-the-job drug testing.

Third, Ransby states that the policy is racially biased, because a
larger proportion of blacks and Latinos than whites are poor. By her
logic, any policy directed at bringing people out of poverty would be
racially biased.

Drug abuse and addiction factor heavily in keeping people in poverty.
It is the failure to treat this disease that smacks of racism and
elitism, not the attempt by the Michigan legislature to solve the problem.

Gerald A. Hanweck Jr