The state is using its tight welfare budget to administer the expensive tests. Tennessee is all set to deny welfare benefits to poor residents based solely on the fact that they’d used drugs. In July they rolled out a program to drug test welfare applicants, which would create even worse health issues for already-struggling addicts. However, the first month’s tests proved that most welfare applicants weren’t using drugs in the first place: of more than 800 applicants, the state caught only one person using drugs. The testing program was popularised and enacted, no doubt, in response to the stereotype that poor people who use government assistance programs tend to be drug users. But it appears that the stereotype is baseless. Just 12 people in Utah’s similar drug testing program came […] Read More
