Pubdate: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 Source: Dallas Morning News (TX) Copyright: 2012 The Dallas Morning News, Inc. Contact: http://www.dallasnews.com/cgi-bin/lettertoed.cgi Website: http://www.dallasnews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117 Author: F. Scott McCown Note: F. Scott McCown is a retired state district judge and executive director of the Austin-based Center for Public Policy Priorities. THE PLOY BEHIND DRUG TESTING THE UNEMPLOYED As part of legislation to extend federal unemployment insurance benefits through 2012, Congress is considering a very bad policy idea: encouraging states to drug test every applicant for unemployment insurance and deny compensation to any who fail. It's such a bad idea that it has twice failed to make it through the Texas House, which is as conservative a legislative body as they come. The whole thing is really a ploy. The proponents of drug testing are trying to undermine public support for unemployment benefits by associating these applicants with drug users. They want the public to think about unemployment insurance like it does welfare, blaming the unemployed - rather than the economy - for their plight. Unemployment insurance is not welfare. By definition, people who qualify lost their job through no fault of their own. They are typically men and women who have worked steadily, often for years or even decades, and have largely covered the cost of their employer's unemployment-insurance tax indirectly through reduced wages. Congress should not subject these workers to the indignity of drug testing. Federal courts have squarely held that mandatory drug testing in situations of this sort violates the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable search and seizures because there is no individualized suspicion of wrongdoing or special need that outweighs a person's right to keep the government off his back and out of his business. The personal invasion goes beyond having to pee in a cup. The worker also would have to disclose to the government all the medications he or she takes to explain any false positive. And there will be many false positives, subjecting people to searching government inquires in their effort to clear their name. Not only is drug testing intrusive, it is expensive. States would have to create a new bureaucracy and pay significant lab costs to test every applicant. New claims for unemployment insurance nationally average about 400,000 a week. Weeding out the false positives will be particularly costly. At a time when states are struggling to fund vital services such as public education, Congress should not encourage them to waste money on such drug testing. Drug issues should be dealt with in the criminal justice or social services systems, not the unemployment insurance system. Of course, as I already said, this debate isn't really about drug policy; it's about undermining public support for unemployment insurance. But let's talk drug policy. Unemployment insurance is designed to pay for a family's food, clothing and shelter while the breadwinner looks for a new job. What if your brother-in-law foolishly smokes pot but also works steadily to support your sister and their children? If he loses his job because of the economy, do you really think it's smart to deny his family those unemployment benefits, forcing them onto welfare or leaving them destitute? To automatically deny these benefits when an unemployed worker fails a drug test is like imposing a massive, mandatory fine for drug use without any of the discretion or treatment provided by our criminal justice and social services systems. Such a penalty is both too harsh and counterproductive. Admittedly, Congress is merely considering giving states an option to drug test applicants. But this is the beautiful part of the ploy. Congress would take none of the responsibility while igniting debates in the 50 states. Frankly, how Congress ultimately comes down on this issue is sort of a test itself. Congress says its top priority is the American worker. But if Congress encourages states to subject American workers to unnecessary, intrusive, expensive and ill-advised drug tests, it is proof positive that for Congress, the American worker really doesn't count for much. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.