WELFARE POLICY IS WRONG; STATE SHOULD NOT APPEAL

The State of Michigan should abandon the fight for its ill-conceived law
requiring drug tests for welfare recipients.

The policy, passed in 1998, was initially invalidated by U.S. District Judge
Victoria Roberts, whose ruling was upheld this week by the U.S. 6th Circuit
Court of Appeals. In a policy supported by the administration of Gov. John
Engler, the state had proposed that any welfare recipient testing positive
for drugs enter a treatment program or forgo benefits.

It's hard to argue that the government should support drug habits. But that
simplistic rationale, which got the law through in the first place, ignores
the fact that drug use is no higher among welfare recipients than it is
among the general population. Testing everyone who gets welfare presumes
that they're all drug users and violates their rights to privacy, which
should not have to be relinquished just to get government help. That is what
the American Civil Liberties Union argued in its successful challenge.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who said she would support testing when there is
reason to believe someone is using drugs, is weighing whether to appeal the
decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Separately, so is Attorney General Mike
Cox. Neither Granholm nor Cox should waste more time or scarce state
resources on this issue.