Arguments Against Drug Testing

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Over a four month period, the state of Florida paid out $118,140 to drug test welfare recipients. That resulted in paying out $45,780 more in tax payer dollars than they would have paid to provide benefits to the 2.6% of beneficiaries that failed the drug test. America has been debating drug testing welfare recipients for years now, some Americans think that screening out drug users will save tax dollars in the long run, while others believe it will only be detrimental in a variety of ways. Drug testing our welfare beneficiaries is unconstitutional, costly, and detrimental to individuals and families. One of the main arguments for drug testing welfare beneficiaries is that it will save tax payer dollars. This would be true if states were able to remove substantial numbers of people from programs. By removing drug users from assistance programs, those dollars could be put to better use in other assistance programs or even into infastructure or healthcare. Removing a substantial number drug users would absolutely take a hefty burden off of our assistance programs. …show more content…
States are actually paying more to drug test recipients than they would be to continue paying their benefits. As stated above, Florida paid nearly $46,000 more to drug test than they would have to just continue fulfilling benefits over four months. Several other states had the same results. The idea that there is a large number of drug addicts using our assistance programs is proving to not be true. By drug testing recipients, we are only able to discover and remove very few people from the programs, and wasting money testing those who are clean. Besides that, it is wasting beneficiaries time that they could be using at school or work or looking for