Persuasive Essay On Welfare Drug Testing

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Jodie Kaser English Composition II 707 Kathleen Gallgher 04-01-2013 Title?!?! When I first thought up my topic I was all for drug testing welfare recipients. If you can be drug tested to work for your money then there should be no problem being drug tested to receive "free” money as well. However, the more I read into the topic I realize that drug testing welfare recipients is not only a violation of the 4th amendment, but based on stereotypes, expensive, and ineffective compared to other treatments as well. Drug testing innocent welfare recipients violates a person’s rights under the 4th amendment. The 4th amendment states “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” (U.S Congress.) The fact that someone receives benefits from the state in no way, shape, or form is probable cause that they have a drug addiction! Individualized suspicion is necessary to perform a search, and states may and do impose drug testing requirements on individuals who have been identified as substance…show more content…
Oregon tried, but found that drug testing was not very effective, while New York and Maryland did cost benefit analyses only to find that drug testing was too expensive and inefficient. Alabama found that job training programs were more effective than drug testing (when it came to moving people off welfare). Louisiana actually passed a drug testing law in 1997, but abandoned the idea when a task force decided that different monitoring system would be more successful and much less expensive ( paper and pencil tests). (Preface to “What are some alternatives and improvements to the welfare

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