Deuxième entrée aujourd'hui autour de l'implantation de tests de dépistage... Des états comme L'Arizona, le Missouri (là où se trouve le Linn State college de mon autre entrée) et l'Indiana souhaitent exclure des programmes les consommateurs de drogues. On justifie la mesure en affirmant qu'on veut s'assurer que l'argent des contribuables est bien utilisé. En Floride, les assistés doivent également assumer le coût du test. Il y a un lien entre ces nouvelles mesures et les majorités de républicains dans les législatures d'état. Si la mesure dans son esprit peut paraître "noble" ou juste, on peut s'interroger sur les retombées qu'entraînera l'exclusion ds programmes sociaux...
"The law, the most far-reaching in the nation, provoked a lawsuit last month from the American Civil Liberties Union, arguing that the requirement represents an unreasonable search and seizure.
The flood of proposals across the country, enabled by the strength of Republicans in many statehouses and driven by a desire to cut government spending, recall the politics of the ’80s and ’90s, when higher rates of drug abuse and references to “welfare queens” led to policies aimed at ensuring that public benefits were not spent to support addiction.
Supporters of the policies note that public assistance is meant to be transitional and that drug tests are increasingly common requirements for getting jobs.
“Working people today work very hard to make ends meet, and it just doesn’t seem fair to them that their tax dollars go to support illegal things,” said Ellen Brandom, a Republican state representative in Missouri.
The last three years, she sponsored legislation requiring testing of welfare recipients, and her bill was signed by Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, in July.
Advocates for the poor say the testing policies single out and vilify victims of the recession, disputing the idea that people on public assistance are more likely to use drugs. They also warn that to the extent that testing programs were successful in blocking some people from receiving benefits, the inability to get money for basic needs would aggravate drug addictions and increase demand for treatment.
At Operation Breakthrough, which provides day care services to low-income women here in Kansas City, Nicole, 22, who asked to be identified only by her first name, began to cry as she described trying to provide for her three children on a monthly welfare check of $342, plus $642 in food stamps.
Her electricity was cut off that morning, she said, which meant she could be evicted from her subsidized housing. The struggle to make ends meet while pursuing a health care degree was so consuming that the idea of taking drugs seemed ridiculous, she added.
Kimberley Davis, the director of social services for Operation Breakthrough, said the legislation sent a bad message. “All this does is perpetuate the stereotype that low-income people are lazy, shiftless drug addicts and if all they did was pick themselves up from the bootstraps then the country wouldn’t be in the mess it’s in,” Ms. Davis said.
Many states have already established ways to prevent people with known drug problems from receiving benefits — about 20 states prohibit unemployment payments for anyone who lost a job because of drug use, and more than a dozen states refuse welfare payments to anyone convicted of a drug felony.
But, as tight state budgets have raised concern about government spending and fostered an impatience with aid to the poor, these efforts have gone further. Some point to federal statistics showing that unemployed adults are about twice as likely as employed adults to have used drugs in the previous month."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/us/states-adding-drug-test-as-hurdle-for-welfare.html
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