Welfare money is not drug money.
Welfare money is for your kids, your groceries, your rent – not weed, strippers and angel dust.
The Louisiana legislature recently took action to ensure that welfare money, which comes in the form of pre-paid debit cards, could not be spent at gambling establishments, liquor stores and strip clubs.
This is a good idea. Welfare money is not intended to fund such vices.
Despite the safeguards taken to prevent misappropriation of welfare funds, it still happens. It’s naive to believe that not one single taxpayer dollar somehow found its way through the welfare system and into the black market via a drug deal.
This is where the debate about drug testing welfare recipients comes from – and I happen to think it’s a pretty good idea.
Like most of you, I’m a big fan of civil liberties, and I do not believe drug testing welfare recipients is a violation of rights.
The welfare average in Louisiana is $137 per month, which comes out to slightly less than $5 per day. That’s not very much money. In fact, that’s hardly anything.
But it’s still money, and if you are being paid by the taxpayers, expect to pee in a cup.
Government workers have to do it. Most non-government workers have to do it. Why shouldn’t a welfare recipient have to do it?
Welfare money should not go to drugs. However, if an individual is on welfare and admits to having a drug problem, I believe the government should provide rehabilitation for this person. Addiction is a public health issue, not a criminal offense.
I am an advocate of the welfare system. I can’t stand when people talk about welfare recipients being a drain on society, just sitting around all day, cashing government checks and smoking the reefer.
This is the stereotype of the welfare recipient in this country, and it couldn’t be further from the truth. Many individuals on welfare are hard-working people with multiple jobs who just need a little help getting by.
Welfare recipients need to submit to drug tests, because if they don’t, conservative America will continue to rant about abolishing all welfare until they get their way.
That cannot happen. This country needs welfare, because countries with a solid socioeconomic safety net are more successful than those without.
In most countries, the poor would leave their home country and come to America in search of better opportunities. Since we are America, the poor aren’t leaving.
The welfare issue is always going to be around, but it doesn’t always have to be problematic. However, it will continue to be so until the stereotype of the welfare recipient changes.
How do you shake the stereotype of a crackhead? It’s as simple as peeing in a cup.
Submitting to a drug test not only proves the welfare critics wrong, recipients would get paid afterwards – assuming they come up clean.
Drug money is what economists would call “disposable income,” as in you will dispose of a lot of your income this way.
For the people who can afford drug habits, go ahead. I have no quarrel with you.
If certain welfare recipients don’t want to give up drugs, stop cashing the checks. Even if taxpayer money isn’t spent directly on narcotics, it frees up other money which can be spent on drugs.
No matter which way you put it, that’s the people’s crack.
So either you share, or you get off welfare.
Parker Cramer is a 21-year-old political science junior from Houston. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_pcramer.
 
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Contact Parker Cramer at [email protected]