The 1996 Welfare Reform Act authorized — but did not require — states to impose mandatory drug testing as a prerequisite to receiving state welfare assistance. In Florida and Michigan, the only two states where drug testing for welfare recipients has been tried, the courts have found that suspicionless searches of people — simply because they are requesting assistance from the state — are a violation of their Fourth Amendment rights.
In Georgia, any proposed legislation that would require drug testing for applicants for state-funded benefits is likely to face the same fate. Being poor and in need in this country does not mean you forfeit your constitutional rights.
There is no reason to believe that drug use among recipients of aid is greater than in the general population. All evidence is to the contrary. In Florida, U.S. District Court Judge Mary Scriven noted in her injunction of Florida’s drug-testing legislation that the state’s own demonstration project to find drug use among welfare recipients failed to uncover evidence of rampant drug use, concluding that drug use did not adversely impact the goals of the welfare programs and did not save the state money.
Scriven also noted that although the state asserted that the public health and crime risks associated with drug use are beyond dispute, “the evidence suggests that those risks are less prevalent among [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families] applicants.”
Before Michigan’s attempt to impose mandatory drug testing on welfare recipients ended by court order in 2000, there was a five-week period of testing that revealed only 21 positive tests from 268 applicants; all but three positive results were from marijuana. That 8 percent number is consistent with the general population. In addition, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources found that 70 percent of illegal drug users between the ages of 18 and 49 are employed full time.
What are the unintended consequences of this misguided attempt to save the state money?
Perhaps the most important is that more children are likely to go hungry. There are more than 500,000 Georgia children receiving food stamps. At a cost of $20 per test, the cost of testing 100,000 parents at a 92 percent pass rate is more than $1.8 million.
That would feed a lot of children at the paltry food-stamp rate of $1.50 a meal.
Debbie Seagraves is executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia.
About the Author
