Missouri House Votes to Allow Drug Tests for Welfare Recipients

By Chad Garrison Wed., Feb. 2 2011 at 12:57 PM

Official Seal of the Missouri Legislature

The Missouri House yesterday passed along a bill to the Senate that they hope will allow for the drug testing of welfare recipients.

H.B. 76, sponsored by Ellen Brandom (R-Sikeston), passed the House by a whopping 121-37 vote margin and would allow any welfare recipient suspected of doing drugs to be tested for illegal substances. The bill leaves it up to the Department of Social Services to determine whom to screen and how to test them.

Those found to have engaged in drugs will lose their benefits under the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program for one year.

They'd also be referred to a drug treatment program, though the state wouldn't pick up the tab for their recovery. A drug user's dependents could still receive welfare support though a protective third-party vendor to ensure the guilty party doesn't use the money for drugs.

Still, social workers see the bill as flawed. "You're going to have incredibly poor kids with an addicted parent, with even fewer dollars in the household," Colleen Coble, executive director for the Missouri Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, tells the Associated Press.

The bill could get even tougher in the Senate, where the AP adds that lawmakers are considering three bills that would take away welfare payments for three years for those caught doing drugs.

Tags:

drug testing, Ellen Brandom, HB 76, Pink Floyd, The Wall, welfare

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sleazy

I voted for Obama, and I also fully support this measure.

People on welfare should not be spending taxpayer money on drugs. That's just wrong. Doing drugs is a PRIVILEGE that belongs to every hard-working, tax-paying member of society, not lazy free-loaders. If you're not punching the clock, then you shouldn't be smoking rock..

billhannegan

That's pretty hard to argue with, sleazy!

So seriously, when can we start drug tests of those who claim home mortgage or student loan interest deductions? Or maybe the CEOs who keep their profits in offshore shadow companies or who took TARP bailouts?

so who pays for rehab then?

Rush...Limbaugh. heh heh, just thought i'd throw his name out there to remind everyone. :D

Smartalek

Now, see, that's where you LIEberals are wrong, wronger, wrongest.Your hate-filled screeds are all you've got, since the facts and logic are all against you.Rush is nothing like those welfare queens, and to try to imply that he is shows you have no perception, and thus no credibility, whatsoever.Rush is one of us, you know?He's not like them, the ones on welfare, who live in those parts of town.He just got caught up in a little problem with the pain from one of his operations (or something like that, I'm sure).Unlike those people, whose lives revolve around drugs and other criminality, Rush's little... situation says nothing about his morals, his level of personal responsibility, or his value to society.He's nothing like those leeches and mooches who reject all of our traditional God-given moral values, like the sanctity of marriage!You'd never see our Rush sneaking around doing drug deals in the dark of night, or carrying on with God-only-knows how many different women, or dodging our draft, or getting involved in "sex tourism," or anything unsavory like that -- all the kinds of nefarious goings-on that you socialist elitists have been destroying our country with!The differences are just as clear as black and white.As plain as the nose on his face.And there's nothing you can say that would put a different complexion on Rush's situation, or on Rush himself.He’ll always be our champion, he’ll always come in first in our race!You LIEberals are just unwilling -- maybe incapable -- to call a spade a spade... and Rush Limbaugh is very obviously no spade!There I said it!