Comments on: Drug Testing Welfare Users Is A Sham, But Not For The Reasons You Think

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 14 Mar 2015 13:00:54 +0000

…kind. And *arguably* true 😛

By: arthur somethingorother

arthur somethingorother — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 02:47:53 +0000

Someone wanted an excuse to shit on Brian Williams’ face, so they picked some totally innocuous shit that a million other people have done and used it as one.

The fact that it’s a completely stupid excuse is the whole thrill. Nobody ever starts an irrational shitdicking frenzy for a reason that makes rational sense.

It’s http://i.imgur.com/B9NNE7n.jpg, and I won’t even say the word because there’s a 50-90% chance someone’s going to respond to this post I just wrote by saying HE SAID THE WORD, GET HIM, even on a rationalist website, because that is how irrationality works

It’s all violent animal pack behavior horseshit. We’re a tiny slice of human on the back of an ape on the back of a lizard on the back of a fucking fish.

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By: obamasux

obamasux — Tue, 03 Mar 2015 19:24:45 +0000

Obviously very few of you have had my experience, in my medical clinic, where welfare “clients” who are also on “disability” come in reeking of booze and pot, asking for narcotic prescriptions, and boldly telling me (and I quote) “I could work more than 20 hours a week, but I’d lose my disability.” The welfare state is scam which enslaves the productive to the nonproductive, for the EXCLUSIVE benefit of politicians and bureaucrats.

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By: Pierce Nichols

Pierce Nichols — Sat, 28 Feb 2015 00:54:45 +0000

As you pointed out at the top of the article, the false-positive rate for drug tests is between 1% and 5%. Therefore, a 2.6% positive rate is also entirely consistent with none of the tested population using illicit drugs.

The study you linked to covers many different types of governmental assistance, and the footnotes state that drug use among people in families that receive Medicaid is substantially higher than among other subgroups. It’s also based on data that is now fifteen years old (1999 & 2000). I don’t think it’s at all legitimate to use it to predict current rates of drug abuse among welfare recipients — too many confounding factors.

The homeless largely do not receive welfare or food stamps, so they are also irrelevant to the discussion of whether or not this policy is a good idea.

And if you are poor enough that you are on welfare, $25 to $35 plus transportation to a drug testing center can be a remarkably steep hill to climb even though it’s almost nothing to you or me (or the folks making these laws). As far as I can tell, this is just red meat for the base and corporate welfare for drug testing companies.

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By: DrBeat

DrBeat — Fri, 20 Feb 2015 03:17:33 +0000

I keep saying “Showing me there are people who believe Lie B does not prove everyone believes Lie B” and you keep responding by showing me there are people who believe in Lie B and expecting it to prove that everyone believes Lie B.

I give up.

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By: Links 2/18/15 | Mike the Mad Biologist

Links 2/18/15 | Mike the Mad Biologist — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 15:01:17 +0000

[…] still arguing about this? 24 Pictures That Perfectly Capture How Insane The Snow In New England Is Drug Testing Welfare Users Is A Sham, But Not For The Reasons You Think Since 9/11, We’ve Had Four Wars in the Middle East. They’ve All Been Disasters. […]

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By: Troy

Troy — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 14:06:41 +0000

Hi Liz,

Since, as I said, I don’t want to have a long debate about the object-level issues — not because I think they’re unimportant, but because doing so is time-consuming and I am not an expert on these issues — this will be my last post. I just want to reiterate that many of the empirical issues which you suggest have been firmly settled have been debated on this very blog. For instance, here’s the post by Scott I mentioned which talks about minimum wage studies; see the funnel plot near the end of that post, and the subsequent discussion in the comments. You’ll find, in that post and others, that a lot of people around here are also interested in “observing and analyzing empirical evidence, seeing if there’s problems to identify, trying to deduce the most likely causes of those problems, and trying to find the most effective way to solve them.” Nevertheless, they come to different conclusions (both from you and from each other). You can make of that fact what you will.

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By: Open Thread And Link Farm: The Dress Is Bigger On The Inside Edition | Alas, a Blog

Thu, 19 Feb 2015 02:29:10 +0000

[…] Drug Testing Welfare Users Is A Sham, But Not For The Reasons You Think | Slate Star Codex […]

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By: keranih

keranih — Wed, 18 Feb 2015 23:31:33 +0000

I actually reject that line of cauasality, and hold that there are as many people who have no misery reason to use drugs as there are people driven to it by misery. And also that the causality flows in the other direction – people who do not spend money on tobacco, alcohol and drugs have more money to spend on other essentials and are less poor, and those of middle and higher classes who do use those items are less well off than those who don’t.

Addicitions are a real problem, but we should be focusing on getting people off these money-sinks, not excusing their use “because they are poor and miserable.”

Of course, as I said below, so long as they are purchasing their habits themselves, I’m going to assume they have enough control of their habits as an adult to make their own decisions. When they have to be on welfare, that’s not the same thing.

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By: keranih

keranih — Wed, 18 Feb 2015 23:26:20 +0000

@ Liz –

I absolutely agree that ‘all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’ – but I find fault with your reasoning that drug use should be excused amongst welfare reciepients on two grounds:

1) I do not agree that recreation need cost money in order to be useful to the person recreating. In fact, you have an extremely high burden of proof to amass before you can come close to convincing me that funds must be expended in order to make either social outings or independent pursuits enjoyable.

2) The use of both legal drugs (alcohol and tobacco) and illegal ones are detrimental to the person who consumes them. What a person does with their own money is their concern, but while they are borrowing money from me to pay for food, housing, and clothing for their childern, I do not expect them to be wasting money on things that will hurt them, damage their health, hamper their ability to work, and get them into legal trouble.

Again, once they are on their own feet and paying for whatever they use with their own money, it stops being my concern.

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