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Sen. Orrin Hatch Wants to Drug Test the Unemployed

By Boyce Watkins, PhD on Jun 23rd 2010 12:26PM
Filed under: Dr. Boyce Money, News

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Sen. Orrin Hatch has proposed legislation that would require all those who are unemployed to submit to drug tests before receiving money from the government. Utah voters are quite happy about the proposal and have given him their full support.
"A lot of people are saying, 'Hey, it's about time. Why do we keep giving money to people who are going to go use it on drugs instead of their families?'" Hatch said.

Hatch claims that the goal is to get users into treatment, rather than allowing them to spend their money on drugs.

"Now, it doesn't do away with food stamps. And it does get the help for them that they really need. And if they get the help, then they're right back on to the cash," he said.


For some reason, other Republicans have remained silent on the issue. Sen. Bob Bennett and Scott Brown, from Utah and Massachusetts, respectively, have said they would need to study the language of Hatch's proposal before making a decision.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, a Democrat out of Maryland, has concerns about such legislation.

"I think it's a punitive attitude. Who's going to pay for the test? What's the point of the test? You know, why do you want to drug test people who have lost their job?" she wondered.

Harold Pollack, a Sociology Professor at The University of Chicago, has spent his career studying the idea of drug testing those on public assistance. He says that Welfare Reform of 1996 already gives states broad discretion to give drug tests, and that Hatch's adjustment would simply be a shift to those without jobs.

"Absent specific indications, my own research and work conducted by others suggests that population drug screening is unwise. The likely consequence is to stretch states' already overburdened screening, assessment, and referral systems with large numbers of casual marijuana users," he said. "In part, this pattern reflects a technological quirk: Urine tests more readily detect marijuana than they can detect other intoxicating substances. In part this pattern reflects the basic epidemiology of illicit drug use."

Pollack cited a study in Michigan, where out of 258 new and continuing welfare applicants tested for drugs, 21 of them tested positive. In that group, 18 out of 21 were only smoking marijuana.

Sen. Hatch's idea shouldn't be dismissed off-hand, since many of us agree that drug use destroys families and individuals all across America. The problem, however, is that in many cases, bad outcomes come in pretty packages. Hatch's seemingly benign efforts to slow illegal drug use and to "get citizens the help they need," may be the first step toward a paternalistic and destructive set of rules and regulations that ultimately undermine the liberty of America's poor.

Also, to keep things simple, I honestly don't care if someone is on welfare smoking weed. If that's all the tests are designed to pick up, then we are wasting our time and money. All the while, Hatch reminds us that drugs are a serious problem in America, and if there are ethical ways to deal with the drug issue, we should give them serious consideration.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and a Scholarship in Action Resident of the Institute for Black Public Policy. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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