Drug Testing the Unemployed

[Lemur]

Apparently there is a push in Congress to drug-test the unemployed. While I get the concept and why it's attractive to a certain mindset, I don't see the connection to reality.

The biggest druggies I have ever known were all well-employed and swimming in disposable income. This makes sense. Drugs cost money. They are a luxury item.

Moreover, a smaller-scale version of this law, which was passed in Florida, yielded a 2% positive drug test result in welfare recipients. This makes sense. Drugs cost money. They are a luxury item.

Thoughts?

[johnhughthom]

The majority of unemployed drug addicts may well be funding their addiction through crime, rather than welfare.

[Lemur]

Actually, the numbers support my contention that drugs, being a luxury item, are less-prominent among the unemployed.

According to The National Survey on Drug Use and Health's 2010 data: "22.6 million Americans 12 or older (8.9-percent of the population) were current illicit drug users."

So we have an estimated illicit drug use among the general population of ~9%. But when actual testing of welfare recipients was performed in Florida, ~2% tested positive. Even if we assume that there was rampant cheating on the drug tests, and double that figure, we still have a 4% positive rate among Florida welfare recipients. In other words, even under unfavorable assumptions, the illegal drug usage rate among the unemployed appears to be ½ of the national rate.

So. Drug tests are not free. Administering them is not free. Testing any significant percentage of unemployed people would be hugely expensive. I question the wisdom of mandating this when the best evidence is that people who are broke are less likely to do illegal drugs.

-edit-

Apparently part of the rationale for the Florida law was cost savings, i.e. we won't pay welfare to druggies, so the tests will save the state budget. Epic fail, reports The Economist:

The state expects between 1,000 and 1,500 people to take the test each month, at a cost of $30 per test—a cost borne by the state for applicants who pass. At the current rate of failure, the state will save a grand total of $40,800 to $98,400 out of a welfare program that will cost an estimated $178m this year. [...]

Whatever the reason, the promised savings have not appeared. But perhaps saving money was never really the point of the program. [...] perhaps the point of the drug-testing program was for Florida's government to signal its disapproval of poor people using drugs, and if it took a massive government intrusion into people's lives, establishing a precedent for suspicionless drug testing on an entire class of people, and paying to defend themselves against lawsuits filed by civil-liberties groups to do that, so be it.

[phonicsmonkey]

What is the point? So you find someone who is a drug user. Do you cut their benefits? What purpose would it serve? Sounds like populist nonsense to me.

[rory_20_uk]

Rampant cheating wouldn't be to double the number. More like times it by 10.

The law sounds pointless in any case. More soundbyte politics.

[Lemur]

Rampant cheating wouldn't be to double the number. More like times it by 10.

Why not multiply it by 100? A thousand? Why not declare that every person who is unemployed is also on PCP?

Doubling a number for a bad-case scenario seems reasonable to me. Going much beyond that would require some data to support the assertion.

And yes, the law seems to consist entirely of posturing for effect. No actual result is wanted or intended.

[rvg]

While a case can be made that this testing is a waste of taxpayers' money, there is nothing wrong with drug tests from a legal perspective. If Floridians want this done then who am I to tell them otherwise? I definitely do not buy the argument about this procedure somehow being discriminatory.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Related: The cure for US job woes: More immigrants

Apparently. I'm not so sure that this is broadly applicable in the USA... (Though it is probably true in high value industries, such as IT or applied research.)

[Papewaio]

Missing the real trick... Reducing the unemployed percentage by employing more testers.

[CountArach]

If some of the unemployed are unemployed because of drug use, why not have more drug clinics and treatment facilities... so that they can work again?

[naut]

If some of the unemployed are unemployed because of drug use, why not have more drug clinics and treatment facilities... so that they can work again?

No. This is America! The poor must remain poor.

[Ice]

If some of the unemployed are unemployed because of drug use, why not have more drug clinics and treatment facilities... so that they can work again?

Considering they send people to rehab for cannabis and weed is the number one "drug" that causes people to fail a drug test, this is a terrible idea and a waste of money.

[Major Robert Dump]

I like the idea, as long as we also drug test all government employees to include Congress, and while we are at it we can drug test recipients of corporate welfare, too

[Vladimir]

I like the idea, as long as we also drug test all government employees to include Congress, and while we are at it we can drug test recipients of corporate welfare, too

I agree. And all testing must be to Army standard. I need to see the urine leave your body. Everybody.

[rory_20_uk]

Which drugs, and what dose in the body? Minor levels of opiates could indicate I was smoking opium a week ago or I had a poppy roll for lunch. Amphetamines could indicate a speed habit or recent use of some types of decongestant.

There will be many cases where things are very straight forward, but it is what to do with these borderline ones. The same thing can be seen in Athletics where athletes will state that the positive result was due to an innocuous source. Proving that this is bull is tough.