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Welfare Drug Testing Proposed
>>Random Drug Tests For Welfare Recipients Proposed
(Sacramento, CA) -- A bill that would require all Californians who receive welfare payments to be subject to random drug testing was introduced at the state capitol Thursday. The bill was the idea of a Riverside County 16-year-old with cerebral palsy that has been linked to his mother's drug use when she was pregnant and on welfare. Sixteen-year-old R.J. Feild FEELD entered his idea in the annual "There Ought To Be A Law" contest sponsored by Republican Assemblyman John Benoit ben-NOYT of Palm Desert. Feild weighed just two pounds at birth, with traces of heroin, marijuana, methamphetamine, alcohol and cocaine in his body. He said when he had to miss a trip to Disneyland because his foster father had to take a drug test for a new job, he thought maybe people on welfare should be drug-tested as well. His law would require welfare recipients who fail a drug test to either complete a one-year drug-treatment program or be removed from the welfare rolls. A federal court has thrown out a similar law in Michigan as a violation of the constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
>>Random Drug Tests For Welfare Recipients Proposed
(Sacramento, CA) -- A bill that would require all Californians who receive welfare payments to be subject to random drug testing was introduced at the state capitol Thursday. The bill was the idea of a Riverside County 16-year-old with cerebral palsy that has been linked to his mother's drug use when she was pregnant and on welfare. Sixteen-year-old R.J. Feild FEELD entered his idea in the annual "There Ought To Be A Law" contest sponsored by Republican Assemblyman John Benoit ben-NOYT of Palm Desert. Feild weighed just two pounds at birth, with traces of heroin, marijuana, methamphetamine, alcohol and cocaine in his body. He said when he had to miss a trip to Disneyland because his foster father had to take a drug test for a new job, he thought maybe people on welfare should be drug-tested as well. His law would require welfare recipients who fail a drug test to either complete a one-year drug-treatment program or be removed from the welfare rolls. A federal court has thrown out a similar law in Michigan as a violation of the constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
While I see how this could cause innocent children to fall through the cracks, I still think this with some additional safety nets put in place could be a great thing.
