AS THE economic situation worsens, citizens look toward the government to cast a safety net beneath them. With America’s unemployment rate at 8.1 percent, lawmakers are beginning to look at who is receiving unemployment benefits. A West Virginia lawmaker, Craig Blair, has introduced a bill into the West Virginia legislature which would require any person receiving government assistance (including welfare, food stamps, and jobless benefits) to submit to random drug screenings. Upon first failing the test, the offender would have 60 days to clean up while still receiving benefits, and then if they failed for a second time, they would be ineligible for benefits for two years. Forms of this bill have appeared in states across the country (including Virginia) although none have been passed as of yet. This attempt to force unemployed citizens to submit to random drug screenings is disgraceful, especially at a time when nearly one-tenth of the nation is struggling to stay on their feet.
The drugs which are targeted by these screenings are all illegal. One could make a plausible argument that people addicted to heroin or cocaine would probably not utilize their unemployment benefits to provide themselves a stable base from which to find a job and begin making money on their own. But this legislation overlooks the fact that these drug tests would not have an impact on people who drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes. Both of these activities are responsible for the deaths of about 75,000 and 440,000 Americans each year, respectively. It seems absurd that lawmakers would only be concerned with the unemployed men and women who choose to use illegal drugs, when these two legal drugs can just as easily inhibit people from receiving employment. Whether you’re buying an 8-Ball or a 24-pack, either way you’re not going to be making it to your job interview the next day, so there is no point in differentiating between the two groups of people. That is not to say that the unemployed should be prevented from consuming alcohol or tobacco, if that is how they choose to allocate their resources. The point is that random drug tests are not going to fix the problem of drug abuse amongst unemployed citizens and thus are a useless exercise in government oversight.
Aside from overlooking the legal drugs which can easily inhibit a person from landing a job, legislation of this type places constraints on jobless benefits, which the government does not have the right to do. Presumably, the newly unemployed citizens of America had been paying into jobless benefits while they were employed through taxes and unemployment insurance. Now that they are unemployed, they need and deserve all that money that they had been giving to the government, regardless of their personal drug habits.
Legislation of this type implies that utilizing government money for anything other than basic needs (food, drink, and shelter) should be illegal. Government money should be used to provide for basic needs while attempting to secure employment, but the implication is that government money should not be used for anything outside of those needs. If that is the concern, then this legislation should mandate that those receiving unemployment benefits cannot purchase drugs (including alcohol and tobacco) or anything that contributes to the leisure of the unemployed (including televisions, computers, books, movie theater tickets, etc.). If the legislators wish to remain consistent in their approach to the unemployed, they must do all they can to prevent them from doing anything other than activities that result in them securing a job. This, of course, would be ridiculous.
It is absurd to force the unemployed to use taxpayer money only in the way that the government mandates. Certainly no one wants to see government money put to waste, but Americans also believe in the freedom of people to spend money in the way they see fit. If these lawmakers are concerned with drug use in America, they should be offering rehabilitation to addicts and fighting those that import drugs, rather than battling American citizens by denying them government benefits and pushing them into deeper poverty (which is obviously a breeding ground for drug use and drug-related crimes).
Laws forcing those seeking unemployment benefits to submit to drug tests completely miss the point. If lawmakers are concerned with drug use, they should be providing rehabilitation services and fighting the drug trade on the supply side. If they are concerned with providing Americans with jobs, they should be doing their best to stimulate the American economy. These laws that claim to be concerned with allocation of government resources and people’s well-being are nothing more than half-hearted attempts to address serious problems in American society. In an attempt to kill two birds with one stone, lawmakers have completely missed the flock.
Michael Khavari’s column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at m.khavari@cavalierdaily.com.
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