Drug Testing for Welfare Recipients? Hells yes!

The AP is reporting today that lawmakers in at least eight states are pushing for drug testing for welfare recipients. Amen, says I.

It's not that I'm in favor of drug testing per se or even that I think most drugs should be illegal in the first place. But given the current statutory situation, drug testing for welfare recipients only makes good sense.

I think back to several of my college jobs, including the most loathed of all: telemarketing. I had to be drug tested for that job and others. Because, you know, one couldn't possibly smoke pot on a Friday and then read off a script to sell MBNA credit cards on a Monday. (Not that I would do that, of course. Pot makes you hungry and then you eat whole bags of chips. And that's not pleasant looking on the thighs.) Anyway, every two weeks I'd get my paycheck from MBNA, and, oh, look: deductions.

Some of those deductions, of course, were for taxes that end up in the hands of welfare recipients as their benefits. Therefore, it's only fair that if I have to be drug tested in order to make money, they should have to be drug tested in order to take money.