Thread: Random drug testing of welfare recipients?

This was an epic failure when attempted in the US...

https://thinkprogress.org/what-7-sta...-c346e0b4305d/

Strikes me as just yet more demonizing of the poor for the heinous crime of being poor BUT both Aust and NZ do have major problems with methamphetamine use/abuse currently and at least they're setting up for treatment.

Regardless of the legal status of marijuana, and keeping in mind that meth is illicit, from the point of view that welfare is paid from tax-payers for the survival of the recipient, dole money should not be used for recreational drugs. Pay the rent, buy the necessities, and that's it. I didn't work and pay tax so some bludger can get high.

However, if this is instituted for some Du30esque anti drug motivation, then it's fine if government ministers are also tested.

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

Strikes me as just yet more demonizing of the poor for the heinous crime of being poor

It will be presented like that, but I worked for my money, paid tax and I'll be buggered if some lazy bogan will use that money to get a hit.
Want to smoke a joint every day, fine, go and earn your money to buy it.

Fair enough but if the U.S. experience is anything to go by (usage rates in welfare recipients being lower than for the general population) all it does it perpetrate a stereotype, further humiliate those receiving benefits, and end up being a waste of even more tax-payer money.

Random drug testing of the rich will prove more fruitful for the piss-drinkers...

I have no problem with testing welfare recipients, but if they're going to dock them for testing positive they should also compensate a few $$ to those that prove negative.

Originally Posted by jabir

they should also compensate a few $$ to those that prove negative.

Why? They'll be compensated with their dole. Lucky to be living in a welfare state that makes sure they don't starve, and get medical treatment and education.

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

tax-payer money

escalate it to random testing for anyone recieving public funds

Australia truly is turning into one creepy little fucked up country populated by weird fascists and, well, just plain old fucking idiots.

Originally Posted by Seekingasylum

Australia truly is turning into one creepy little fucked up country populated by weird fascists and, well, just plain old fucking idiots.

i think mongrels is the word ur looking for. of coarse the mongrels controlling them all have a fancy word for them all.

Originally Posted by David48atTD

Australian Government chooses western Sydney for first random drug testing of welfare recipients

- Good Idea or Not?

Fair enough.

Is there is drug use (and booze although it's harder to detect) it could be the reason or one of the reason the person is unable to function and support themselves.

Originally Posted by Maanaam

It will be presented like that, but I worked for my money, paid tax and I'll be buggered if some lazy bogan will use that money to get a hit.
Want to smoke a joint every day, fine, go and earn your money to buy it.

Problem is that even more of the tax payers money will be wasted performing the tests and then on rehab for those that test positive.

There's no way that this is going to save the tax payer money.

Originally Posted by Maanaam

Originally Posted by jabir

they should also compensate a few $$ to those that prove negative.

Why? They'll be compensated with their dole. Lucky to be living in a welfare state that makes sure they don't starve, and get medical treatment and education.

Ya, that makes sense too.

www.xxx.xxx.xx/news/2017-06-13/victorian-government-rejects-federal-welfare-drug-testing-plan/8613482

Drug testing for welfare recipients slammed as 'cheap, populist nonsense' in Victoria
7.30 By Julia Holman


Victorian Minister for Mental Health, Martin Foley interviewed by 7.30. 13 June 2017.

PHOTO: Victorian Minister for Mental Health, Martin Foley, says the plan will demonise people. (ABC News)
RELATED STORY: People who fail welfare drug tests may have income managed for two yearsRELATED STORY: 10pc of welfare users expected to test positive for drugsRELATED STORY: 'A policy based on love': PM defends welfare drug testing
MAP: Melbourne 3000
The Victorian Government has said it will not cooperate with the Federal Government's proposed plan to test welfare recipients for illicit drugs.

Key points:

Federal Government trial to drug test up to 5,000 welfare recipients
People testing positive would be forced onto a cashless welfare card
Victorian Government says it won't take part in the trial
Describes the plan as "cheap, populist nonsense"
"It simply won't work, and it's cheap, populist nonsense designed to create a smokescreen as to what really drives disadvantage," Victoria's Mental Health Minister Martin Foley told 7.30.

"We've made it clear to the Federal Government, at two ministerial councils, that we're not interested in being part of this scam because all it will do is create even more demand for services that are already stretched, that are already under pressure from Commonwealth cuts, and we won't have a bar of it."
Under the trial, which is due to start early next year, the Federal Government will test 5,000 people on Youth Allowance and Newstart for marijuana, ecstasy and ice.

Anyone who returns a positive result will be forced onto the cashless welfare card, which will quarantine their income for essential items like rent and food.

Testing positive for a second time could mean the person will be referred for treatment.

But the Victorian Government argues the Federal Government's policy will be counterproductive.

"If the Commonwealth wants to go out and demonise people and pretend they're doing good work in this space, let them do it somewhere else," Mr Foley said.

"Because all it will do in Melbourne and Victoria is drive more people into disadvantage."

Politicians take voluntary drug test

Andrew Laming (l), Luke Howarth (c) and Ben Morton (r) sit by a low table with a drug testing kit on it
PHOTO: (L-R) Andrew Laming, Luke Howarth and Ben Morton undertake a voluntary drug test at Parliament House. (ABC News: Julia Holman)
Federal Liberal MP Andrew Laming has been pushing for years to drug test welfare recipients.

He and some of his colleagues think the trial will go some way to addressing what they acknowledge is a complex social issue.

"No one is saying it's a magic wand, are they?" he told 7.30.

"But what we're saying is that if you know there's going to be a test in the coming days, we would expect that people would change their behaviour, like they have in the workplace."
Mr Laming today organised for representatives from the Workplace Drug Testing Association of Australia to come to Parliament House and test any MP who was game.

Luke Howarth and Ben Morton were two Government MPs who were happy to take part.

"I think this is the positive difference that many people need, to give them that intervention," Mr Morton said.

Mr Howarth added: "We want to help everyone be the best they can be."

Mr Howarth, Mr Morton and Dr Laming all tested negative for drugs, but Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie was unimpressed by what she called a "circus".

"Andrew Laming is doing a stunt," she said.

"He's already organised this so he's had time to clean himself up, even if he was taking drugs."

Senator Jacqui Lambie being interviewed by 7.30 at Parliament House on 13 June 2017
PHOTO: Senator Jacqui Lambie says politicians should be subject to random drugs tests as well. (ABC News)
Senator Lambie does not oppose drug testing welfare recipients, but she wants the trial extended to cover all public servants, including politicians.

"Politicians and public servants don't take drugs? Rubbish! I don't believe that," she said.
She believes the drugs tests must be mandatory.

"It should be random drug testing, so when I walk in here (Parliament House) and they say, 'You are going to lick the stick', then that's exactly what I'm going to be doing, and everyone else behind me on that random list," she said.

Workplace Drug Testing Association of Australia chair Andrew Leibie thinks it is likely there will be some politicians who will test positive if there is random testing.

"I have no idea what the positive rate would be in Parliament, but the answer is that we would find some people would test positive if we had a large enough sample because that's been our position in any workplace," he said.

Trial has many problems

A drug test.
PHOTO: A drug test used by police to detect impaired drivers. (Supplied: ACT Policing)
The clinical director of Drug and Alcohol Service at Sydney's St Vincent Hospital, Dr Nadine Ezard, thinks the plan could be counterproductive.

"What it can do is actually make people's social circumstances even more precarious and perhaps tip people into even more dangerous ways of living," she told 7.30.

She has written to Social Services Minister Christian Porter, urging him to reconsider the proposal.

"I think this approach has many problems," she said.

"From the technical to the operational to the economic.

"It probably needs to be reworked, if the aim is to improve the health of the Australian population."
Legislation for the trial is set to enter Parliament shortly, and Dr Laming believes it could help people into work.

"Ultimately what we want is a job-ready unemployed group, not one that's unable to work because of drug addiction," he said.

"The simple element of a test gives us the information we never had, and doing a trial tells us about this technology and how it works in the real world."

yes good idea test the lot

Do cops get random drug tests?

Just askin'

I know someone really quite high up in government (head of a statutory body) who likes to indulge in pot....but I don't begrudge it to him.

It's pretty harmless to all, except those poor unfortunates who are predisposed to schizophrenia and who start taking it before they are 18. Sends some of them off the rails.

Cannibis & Meth only?

That's a testing failure before it even starts. Plenty of other easily accessible drugs people could do without failing that test.

LOL @ some people in here crying about demonizing welfare recipients by making them get drug tested.

Totally ok to do pre-employment & random drug tests, but to get free government money? oh no, nope, muh feelz.

Also LOL @ "the American experience" being a couple of states and a whopping 1 million dollars.

Retards gonna retard.

You better hope your work doesn't introduce literacy testing.

You'll fail. Miserably.

Originally Posted by Slick

Totally ok to do pre-employment & random drug tests

I got tested prior to nearly every employment offer when I was young and in minimum wage. In later jobs where I was fully responsible for the health and well being of many others as part of my job capacity: No tests. Ever. Its hardly as if these workplaces were drug free either.

Come to think of it I can't even understand how being high on weed disqualifies someone from flipping hamburgers in the first place.

I think it comes down to respect. Accomplished people with options take it as an insult on their person, and can afford to walk away from that garbage. Poor people applying for shit jobs usually have less options and more desperation. They'll jump through the hoops.

Originally Posted by redhaze

Originally Posted by Slick

Totally ok to do pre-employment & random drug tests

I got tested prior to nearly every employment offer when I was young and in minimum wage. In later jobs where I was fully responsible for the health and well being of many others as part of my job capacity: No tests. Ever. Its hardly as if these workplaces were drug free either.

Come to think of it I can't even understand how being high on weed disqualifies someone from flipping hamburgers in the first place.

I think it comes down to respect. Accomplished people with options take it as an insult on their person, and can afford to walk away from that garbage. Poor people applying for shit jobs usually have less options and more desperation. They'll jump through the hoops.

In comes down to insurance.

You may only get a pre-employment test, or may not. You may get randoms, maybe not.

Get injured on the job boyo - you're getting tested. Hard.

It also depends on the type of work you do. I get tested all the time because if I slip up, people could die.

Originally Posted by Slick

In comes down to insurance.

Get injured on the job boyo - you're getting tested. Hard.

Yeah but what I'm saying is that I worked in higher risk, higher responsibility jobs and never once had pre-test or randos in any of them. Burger flipper or employee at Blockbuster freaking video? All day long. Blockbuster wouldn't even do urine. It was hair follicle or fuck off. What is someone gonna do at that job? Slip on a copy of The Titanic?

Originally Posted by Slick

It also depends on the type of work you do. I get tested all the time because if I slip up, people could die.

I think your job falls into that special exception category same as Passenger Pilot and the like.

But even then its not hard and fast. I know a surgeon who does like kidney transplants and shit. Smokes all the time. Never tested.