Drug Testing For Food Stamps
On Kentucky’s House Bill #208 that denies public assistance benefits to those who test positive for drugs: So how will these people afford to eat? I can understand mandatory drug testing to determine eligibility for the cash payments. Well, maybe a little anyhow. But food stamps? Come on. Though you might be able to exchange them for cash in certain situations, you can’t generally buy drugs with food stamps as easily as with cash. In fact, all you can get is food, which all of us need to survive, including the drug-addicted. Even those addicted to drugs should be allowed to survive. No? This would seem to be the latest in a long string of ways that the well-to-do demonize the poor. Would these self-righteous lawmakers have these folks just die off? So in my opinion, states should not bar those sick with drug addiction their means of survival.
Let me say also that when you deprive a person of his primary means of sustenance (his food stamps), now you’re trifling with the survival instinct, which can be quite dangerous. That is to say: Starve a man, and he’ll likely take desperate measures to get food, including committing crimes of hunger-driven passion. High moral codes matter little next to an empty belly. Decency and civilization take a back seat. Indeed, most will beg, borrow, steal, and in some cases, kill, in order to keep living. So we may not want to cut too many life lines to the drug-addicted poor, lest we have to cope with the raw fury of their hunger, not to mention that of their addictions. If we get too greedy, we hurt ourselves in the end.
Yes, there are many programs that attempt to cure addiction and many appear to work. But typically, their success rates are dubious at best, unless you pay tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to participate in one of the very good ones. Therefore, high quality addiction treatment is by no means available to all; especially not to the poor. So I think it’s wrong to expect the poor addict to successfully complete said treatments when they can’t afford them in the first place.
Drug addictions are highly subject to relapse, and I’m not convinced that all anyone who is addicted really needs to do to break the addiction is to simply stop needing. Altering an addiction (or any desire really), is tough business. People spend years in therapy making the attempt, and often failing.
Another point to consider is that lots of these drugs permanently alter the brain (LSD is but one example that can permanently change perceptions and otherwise injure a healthy brain). Such drugs can leave one needing more because of the permanent chemical changes they bring about. This is especially true when a kid is exposed to these medications while his brain is still developing. The drugs alter the ‘normal’ course of development, which at this point in time, we cannot repair. The signature of the drug then remains with that brain forever. So in many of these cases, it’s not a simple matter of the addict just willing himself to get over it. All the positive mental energy he can muster will not repar the cell damage that some of these more powerful potions can do.
I applaud the reformed addict for being able to break his addiction. But, he was one of the lucky ones. Consider that the experience of addiction differs for each of us, as our brains react in different ways to these drugs. It’s easier for some, due to individual bio chemistries. to break addictions than it is for others. So just because one addict was able to manage a clean break by no means implies that all other addicts would have as easy a time doing it.
Who’s to say how TRUE the need for help for the addicted is? I’d say they truly need help. Addictions can result in life and death situations just as grave as starvation.
Also, some appear to believe that people who work hard more deserve society’s help than these addicts because they worked so hard for so many years. While in some cases, that may be true, on the whole, I disagree because there was lots of good fortune that went anyone’s way who’s succeeded, and that enabled them to be so productive for so long; good fortune that many never see in their life times. Perhaps these workers have genes for high achievement or tenacity. Maybe their brain chemistry helped them avoid addiction traps, simply because they never desired the bad drugs. My point: A person is worth far mar than just the amount of their work. That is: We’re all human, regardless of how much or how little we work. As such, we’re all worthy to survive and not be downtrodden by society. In this vein, I’d suggest that the drug addict deserves proper food and health care just as much as anyone who works a lot; not more, and not less.
Some people say we should juet “get tough” on addicts and remove all the safety nets; too bad for those would would not survive such an arrangement. These folks think that tough love is the best way to rid society of its drug addiction problem. Please see my Tough Love For Addicts? piece for a discussion of this imperfect solution.
One final point: People often make statements like, “I’m not giving an addict my money for free.” But technically, what they call their money is not really theirs; at least not fully anyhow. Indeed, they can make that money to begin with, precisely because others have made that possible. They drink government-regulated water that’s safe to consume because of the regulation. They eat food that probably won’t kill them because government and private watchdog groups are keeping a keen eye on the companies making it. They drive their cars on government-built roads and make their telephone calls on a phone system that in the beginning at least, was largely subsidized by the government. So let’s not get too possessive of or take too much credit for the money we earn because regardless of the effort we put forth, we’re still only partially responsible for the fortune that results.