Missouri Senate Committee Passes Bill to Drug Test Welfare Recipients. Do You Agree With It?
Question by Sound_of_the_silenced: Missouri Senate Committee Passes Bill to Drug Test Welfare Recipients. Do you agree with it?
A Missouri state Senate committee voted Tuesday to approve a bill that would require welfare recipients and applicants to pass a drug test in order to receive government aid. The bill, SB 607, passed the Senate Health, Mental Health, Seniors, and Families Committee on a 5-3 vote.
The bill attempts to get around constitutional problems with other mandatory drug testing bills by limiting drug testing to those whom case workers have identified as creating “a reasonable suspicion” they are using drugs. Persons who are then drug tested and test positive would have an administrative hearing and after that hearing, could be declared ineligible for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits for three years. Dependent children of people thrown off the rolls would not lose their benefits; instead, they would be provided through a payee for the children.
The bill also provides that the Department of Mental Health would refer people who test positive to drug treatment, although it doesn’t specify who would pay for it. Nor does the bill have any provision for returning someone to the rolls after successfully completing treatment.
The vote came despite a fiscal impact analysis that found the measure would cost the state more than $ 2.5 million in 2011 and around $ 3.5 million in 2012 and 2013. While the state would save some money from paying out fewer benefits, those savings would be swamped by the costs of drug testing, hearings for people who appealed the loss of benefits, and the cost of drug treatment.
Missouri is one of a handful of states where similar bills are moving this year. Similar bills have been filed or pre-filed in Florida, Kentucky, South Carolina, and West Virginia.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/619/missouri_senate_committee_passes_welfare_drug_test_bill
Best answer:
Answer by Paul Grass™
Yes I do and I lobbied for it
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