The North Carolina state Senate is considering a bill requiring welfare applicants to take a drug test when applying to the program. This proposal is the latest in a disturbing trend of similar policies being enacted across the country.

States such as Texas, Kansas, North Carolina and New Hampshire are considering drug-screening policies, while others such as Florida and Missouri have actually made them into law. These policies raise constitutional, political and cultural concerns.

Such legislation has rightfully not been introduced — or even discussed — in New York.

These policies — usually offered and supported by Republicans — are designed to prevent welfare recipients who use illegal drugs from financing their addictions with public money.

The logic here is that money will be saved or diverted to other applicants not using drugs.

Among the many problems with these programs, however, is that all available evidence shows their implementation actually costs more money than is saved by kicking drug users off of welfare. In Florida, the state actually saw a net loss of funds when the law was enforced before a federal judge blocked its implementation.

According to a 2012 report by The Miami Herald, 4,068 welfare applicants took drug tests while the law was enforced. Of those applicants, 108 — or 2.6 percent — failed.

All of those undergoing screening had to pay for the cost of the test on their own. People who passed were reimbursed for that cost by the state. The North Carolina proposal currently under consideration contains a similar provision.

Florida taxpayers spent $118,140 to reimburse welfare applicants for the cost of their drug tests. When it comes to the bottom line, the state wasn’t saving money as intended, but actually saw a net loss of $45,780.

From a fiscal standpoint, drug testing welfare applicants simply doesn’t make sense. States such as Florida are left eating the cost of a policy that, while accomplishing the goal of blocking drug users from receiving public aid, operates under a constant deficit.

Drug testing welfare applicants is not only fiscally unsound, but it also clearly violates constitutional rights.

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protects individuals from unreasonable search and seizure conducted without a warrant or probable cause. In other words, government has to have a reasonable suspicion of guilt before it can conduct a search. Forcing welfare applicants to take a drug test without any prior reasonable suspicion is, therefore, unconstitutional.

Being poor does not constitute probable cause. In fact, if the data from Florida is at all representative of the larger population of welfare recipients nationwide, the rate of drug use among that population is significantly lower than what many people believe.

New Yorkers need not worry about the implementation of similar reforms at the state level. New York’s own politics are progressive enough where such invasive legislation is highly unlikely to be proposed, much less passed.

It’s perplexing that conservatives readily use a literalist interpretation of the Constitution to justify their opposition to many liberal policies, then largely ignore it when it comes to advancing their own agenda of infringing upon individual rights.

Drug testing welfare applicants isn’t the first time the right wing has attacked the rights afforded by the Bill of Rights. It is the latest in a long line of intrusive policies, which includes the Patriot Act and restricting women’s access to abortion.

It seems as if the party that prides itself on protecting personal liberties is only interested in doing so for anyone who isn’t a woman, a minority or poor. God help those who fit all three of those categories.

But aside from politics, a broader cultural issue lies within legislation requiring welfare applicants to submit to drug screening — that is, treating drug addiction as a criminal problem instead of a medical one.

Simply kicking addicts off of welfare and throwing them in prison does not cure their disease. If government officials truly wish to help solve the nation’s drug problem, they will increase funding for rehabilitation programs proven to cure addiction.

Fortunately, a federal judge blocked Florida’s own policy regarding welfare applicants from being enforced in 2011. But if individual liberty is to be protected throughout the country, challenges against all such policies must be brought to the legal system and result in their overturning.

David Swenton is a junior political science and writing and rhetoric major. He can be reached at daswento@syr.edu or followed on Twitter at @DavidSwenton.

Published on April 11, 2013 at 3:30 am