Out of 16,017 applicants for assistance programs in Tennessee, 37 tested positive for drugs.

[spanone]

here's what happens in a state where we have a republican house, a republican senate and a republican governor.

total bullshit

just like the voter i.d. law they pushed through.

Drug testing of welfare applicants yields few positives

Six months after the rollout of a controversial law to drug-test people applying for public benefits, only a small fraction of low-income Tennesseans seeking financial assistance have tested positive for illegal drugs.

Thirty-seven of 16,017 applicants for the Families First cash assistance program between July and December tested positive for illegal substances, according to the Department of Human Services.

Another 81 lost their chance to receive benefits because they discontinued the application process at some point between the time they were required to fill out a three-item drug screening questionnaire and completing their application.

Opponents of the new rules say that they single out poor people for drug testing over other recipients of federal benefits — such as veterans, college students getting low interest loans or farmers with crop subsidies.

http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2015/02/08/drug-testing-tennessee-welfare-applicants-yields-positives/23085301/

[mike_c]

1. a whopping 0.23%....

Sheesh.

[rhett o rick]

2. I wonder the cost per positive testee? nm

[yeoman6987]

5. Did they stop their checks from arriving every month?

What on Earth will they do? 37 lives ruined.

[Tsiyu]

3. Tennessee loves to hate the poor

It's pretty sickening, really.

Why aren't our state legislators - who should mostly all be locked up for the safety of society - drug tested? They get farm subsidies and all sorts of tax breaks for themselves and their buddies. Millions of dollars worth in some cases.

I think anyone given the great responsibility of making laws should have to be screened.

You get a few hundred in food stamps a month? Boy, that requires some real moral fortitude, I guess.

The South will NEVER rise again, because the people are so damned beaten down by their own governments. It's very depressing to be in the South for that reason. Very, very sad.

[madokie]

4. I'm UA'd by the VA

and once after eating a single piece of poppy seed lemon cake a few day before they had me as testing positive for dilaudid. I just laughed at their stupid asses on that one.

[TBF]

6. I bet if you tested Congress

you'd get a higher percentage.

[lunasun]

7. +1 !! exactly

[Kalidurga]

8. Drugs cost money

and if you don't have a lot of money you will be spending a lot of time trying to get your drugs doing illicit things and otherwise. Poor people have very little time or money for drugs.

[whatthehey]

9. To be honest though, they only tested those who self-reported prior drug issues

This was not a random test.

If you wanted to avoid testing and had the brain of a turnip, you just answered that you had no prior drug problems on the initial survey.

[CanonRay]

10. The Tennessee state legislature would test higher

[DirkGently]

11. Rick Scott spent millions in Florida

... to find out the same thing.

People aren't poor because they're "on drugs."

Jesus.

[Roland99]

13. With the money going to his own drug testing firm!!

oh wait...it was in his wife's name. Ergo, no conflict of interest!

[nomorenomore08]

23. Truth. Poverty precedes addiction more often than the reverse. n/t

[csziggy]

12. That's a lower rate than they found in Florida - but it still didn't pay off in Florida

No Savings Are Found From Welfare Drug Tests
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
Published: April 17, 2012

<SNIP>

From July through October in Florida — the four months when testing took place before Judge Scriven’s order — 2.6 percent of the state’s cash assistance applicants failed the drug test, or 108 of 4,086, according to the figures from the state obtained by the group. The most common reason was marijuana use. An additional 40 people canceled the tests without taking them.

Because the Florida law requires that applicants who pass the test be reimbursed for the cost, an average of $30, the cost to the state was $118,140. This is more than would have been paid out in benefits to the people who failed the test, Mr. Newton said.

As a result, the testing cost the government an extra $45,780, he said.

And the testing did not have the effect some predicted. An internal document about Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, caseloads stated that the drug testing policy, at least from July through September, did not lead to fewer cases.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/us/no-savings-found-in-florida-welfare-drug-tests.html

[quaker bill]

14. They do not work with the poor

If you actually work with the poor and the homeless, you quickly find that those with drug habits are the most poor and almost never collect benefits of any kind. Often they do not even have the ID required to apply.

Those with drug habits simply do not hang out in government offices.

Yes there are people who are very poor and have substance abuse problems. They are only out of jail for brief intervals and rarely if ever apply for or collect government benefits. Many of this small population die quite young, others, once the local police get to know them, move to another town.

For the RW there simply has to be something "wrong" of "different" about those who need assistance. "They" cannot be the same as "us". The problem is that in reality the differences, to the extent they exist at all, are threateningly small. It often boils down to a handful of IQ points, growing up poor, and a bad decision or two decades ago. It often has nothing to do with character, honesty, sobriety, or a willingness to work very hard.

[Skittles]

15. that excellent analysis earns you a heart, quaker bill!

[nomorenomore08]

24. +2

[cheapdate]

16. Families First (Tennessee TANF vehicle) doesn't really pay shit anyway.

Something like $50 cash per month per household. That's about it.

[Tsiyu]

29. And the sad thing is, they are punishing children

If a parent does have a drug problem, how does starving their kids help?

The fact that so few people actually tested positive tells you that most people are actually using the EBT and FF to survive.

We need treatment facilities more than we need prisons, as well.

[Sanity Claws]

34. The drug tests probably cost more than that

[Unknown Beatle]

17. Now that the right has a new meme,

that they're for the poor, dems ought to hammer them on what's going on in repug controlled states. Tennessee is a perfect example.

[OldRedneck]

18. Not exactly clear

Read the original article in the Nashville, TN, newspaper.

http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2015/02/08/drug-testing-tennessee-welfare-applicants-yields-positives/23085301/

At the bottom of the article, you find these numbers:

From July 1 to Dec. 31, 2014

16,017 people applied for Families First
279 drug tests were administered
37 drug tests were positive
25 were referrred for a substance abuse evaluation
5 enrolled in drug treatment or support group programs
8 refused to take the questionnaire and were disqualified
81 were denied benefits because they dropped out of the application process
$4,215 spent on drug tests

They administer a questionnaire that includes three questions asking "Have you used drugs lately? What have you used?"

The only people who are tested are those who answer YES on the drug use questionnnaire.

So -- they drug tested 279 and 37 were positive -- that's 13 percent -- which is a hefty percentage.

Now, 37 positives out of 16,017 applicants is 0.2% -- a tiny percentage.

What would happen if they had tested all 16,000? Would the failure rate have been 13 %? We'll never know.

Don't get me wrong -- I am NOT in favor of this, however, the original article is misleading.

[nomorenomore08]

25. 87% without substance-abuse issues to speak of.

At the very least, they were able to abstain long enough to test clean. Which certainly suggests they're not addicts.

Addiction is a problem at all levels of society, no matter how much some people (not you) like to scapegoat the poor.

[quaker bill]

30. They tested all applicants in FL

and found 2.6% positives. This was markedly lower than expected for the general population. The experiment was run.

[linuxman]

19. Hate to be that guy,

but were all the applicants tested, or was it spot testing?

I don't believe that the american public at large would differ too much from the segment of society which requires benefits, and I'm fairly sure that drug use in general exceeds the 0.0023 figure presented.

I couldn't really give a shit whether the applicants are on drugs or not, as addiction really has no bearing on whether or not one needs assistance, but the figures don't add up to me, personally.

[whatthehey]

20. No. The only people tested were a)utter morons and b)saintly deontologist druggies

The only people tested were those who admitted to recent drug use in a survey for a drug testing program.

Either really bonecrushingly stupid or really bonecrushingly honest drug users were the only test subjects.

[linuxman]

21. I see.

Well, the numbers make a bit more sense then.

[kelliekat44]

22. Read the numbers. Only 279 drug test were administered. So it is 37 out of 279.

They didn't ask about prescription drug use, just weed, meth, cocaine, heroin. I bet that 90% of 279 were black.

[mwooldri]

28. Some prescription meds will trigger a failure for meth.

If it's a proper test then yes lab equipment will be able to tell the difference between meth and other amphetamines found in a wide variety of lawful medications. Simpler lab tests may not be able to make that distinction.

[Comrade Grumpy]

33. The only ones tested were ones deemed to "likely" be using drugs.

A two-step process:

Initial screening to find those likely to be drug users, then testing those deemed likely users.

The initial screening process appears to be not so hot if something like 85% of those it flagged passed drug tests.

[mwooldri]

26. Drug testing - eurgh :(

I wonder out of those 37 "positive" results, were they all for "illegal" drugs? I have a sneaky feeling that those 37 could be whittled down further for finding out what those positive results were for. If the drug tests themselves are not that sophisticated, then a result with Dexedrene or Ritalin (a couple of attention deficit disorder medications) in it could cause a drug test "positive" result.

[Enthusiast]

32. It might be from Nexium.

[grasswire]

27. and how much did this cost the state? nt

[Enthusiast]

31. I'm in favor of testing the legislature and governor.

Actually I feel testing is a violation of our privacy. But the Tennessee legislature deserves testing for being such self righteous assholes.

[libtodeath]

35. Those that suffer the disease of addiction should be cared for

by the country not demonized for it.

[olddots]

36. there is big money in drug testing

You can bet politicians get kick backs