Urine test for welfare candidates

[Eksadiss]

I normally delete my junkmail by reflex but this one caught my eye

LETTER FROM AN OIL RIG WORKER:
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I work, they pay me. I pay my taxes and the government distributes my
taxes as it sees fit.
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In order to earn that pay cheque, as I work on a rig site for a Fort MacMurray construction project, I am required to pass a random urine test, with
which I have no problem.
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What I do have a problem with is the distribution of my taxes to people
who don't have to pass a urine test.
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Shouldn't one have to pass a urine test to get a welfare cheque because I
have to pass one to earn it for them???
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Please understand - I have no problem with helping people get back on
their feet.
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I do on the other hand have a problem with helping someone sit on their
a$$ drinking beer & smoking dope.
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Could you imagine how much money the country would save if people had to
pass a urine test to get a public assistance cheque???
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Please pass this along if you agree or simply delete if you don't!!!
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Hope you all will pass it along though, because something has to change
in this country, and soon!!!

Being a Canadian and seeing how badly our welfare system gets abused I personally really like this idea. The saved money could go into helping to pay for the abusers rehabilitation rather then funding their alcohol and drug habits perhaps, or of course into Education, military, etc..something useful.

What do you guys think?

[kev-o]

I like it. It won't be a waste of money that for sure.

[Last Roman]

generally, I think people should be able to do whatever they wish with their money. However, in this case, since it's tax money going to others, I could support this.

[Eksadiss]

what? no debating on this yet? I'm disappointed that the TWC community has yet to find some way to bash this.

[mongrel]

Eksadiss, I shall take up the banner.

There is an blindingly obvious reason why oil-rig workers can't get pissed or stoned. They will kill themselves or other people. In return for this and other minor inconveniences they get a shed load of money and the employer can rest easy knowing that some drunk won't destroy the rig. Some people on welfare can get drunk and stoned but any detriment would, for the most part be inflicted upon themselves. The cost of having to test all welfare claimants, allowing together with the bureaucracy required for monitoring and enforcement would increase the cost of welfare signficantly. The question is is it worth paying more taxes to quite literally pay for an army of piss-takers.

[Kiljan Arslan]

I got a better Idea require they serve their nation two years before they get welfare, plus make sure the welfare is below what they would be making with an actual job.

[Spurius]

I'm all for it. I'll start buying up large quantities of baby urine.

Pecunia non olet. I smell business.

[mongrel]

Excellent idea Spurius, although I could undercut you, as I would source my materials from farm animals. They can produce limitless quantities for free. Fight the system!

I got a better Idea require they serve their nation two years before they get welfare, plus make sure the welfare is below what they would be making with an actual job.

I am against the idea. I pay a small fortune in National Insurance Contributions and have done for around a quarter of a century. If I were through some misfortune to lose my job, I would find it most unreasonable if I had to say goodbye to my wife and kids and do a two year tour in Helmand Province, before receiving an entitlement I have already paid for several times over.

[Bovril]

I'd strongly oppose this on several grounds.
Drug use is often incidental to unemployment, disability or other reasons a person recieves welfare, and as such is not relevant to the receipt of welfare.
Taking drug users of welfare would make them resort to crime.
I'm opposed to the government getting involved in people's personal lives, to the extent that I dissaprove of the criminalisation of drugs.
Drug users need positive, not negative, intervention in their lives to help them become usefull members of society. Maybe mandatory drug tests would be a good idea if the upshot of a positive result was drug councelling, but the idea of having an underclass of drug users kicked out of every system of government aid is a recipe for disaster.

[Eksadiss]

The millions of dollars that are being wasted on people who just live off welfare with no intention of finding a job could go towards paying for the whole process plus the rehabilitation of abusers. The object is not to just save money but to make a much more effective use out of it and actually HELP these people instead of supporting their government freeloading.

Last year, there were more than 1.7 million people drawing welfare in Canada, over 5 percent of the population. Most of them, reports Welfare Incomes 2004, lived on incomes well below what the government itself calls the poverty line, despite Canada being one of the richest countries on the globe.

Source: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jul2005/can-j09.shtml

Now of course I know not all of them are these "abusers" but this is ALOT of money that is just given to these people with just so much as expecting them to put it to good use.

As for the issue of drug criminalization. It's not about whether what they are spending our money on is illegal or not, its whether its being spent on getting these people back on track like the way welfare was designed to do. Cutting off welfare to illegal drug abusers(or at least giving them a time frame to clean up before being cut off) and putting that money into getting them back on their feet and independent, to me is a much more effective use for it both in moral terms and financial terms.

[Dayman]

generally, I think people should be able to do whatever they wish with their money. However, in this case, since it's tax money going to others, I could support this.

Agreed.
And I support workfare instead.

"You need to support your family? Okay, well you're gonna have to clean the streets."

Also, not urine tests but it should be controlled more tightly, and if someone is a complete mess (say under said workfare system, a bad employee) then funds are cut.

[Lord Condormanius]

I don't support urine tests for any reason.

[Sidmen]

No, urine tests are too easily cheated, I say blood tests! The money saved would most likely go to the blood tests, but it doesn't matter. Most drug users on welfare (I know well over a dozen) have no intention of getting a job, they're satisfied sponging off the government to pay for their addiction. I say make em work for it! Druggies can easily be herded into rehabilitation camps where they act as slave labor for a trailer, 3 meals a day, and some good ole fashioned drugs.

[Spurius]

I say blood tests!

Bone Marrow! Tattoo their chromosomes!

[removeduser_487563287433]

I don't know. The idea is logical, of course, but I don't understand drug addiction... nor do I know if this would be the best way of helping addicts. I'd rather leave it up to the people with the expertise.

[Spurius]

I think people forget that a certain level of auto-sedation/tranquilisation of a population is not *at present* by definition a bad or undesirable thing, and probably one of the reasons why alcohol- and prescription benzodiazepine abuse are more common in the lower social echelons than the higher, and no signs of society seeing any real need to change that either.

Panem et circences, and loads of chemicals.

Of course the same gouvernment would demand strict abstention in people in significant jobs. Being on the dole isn't one of them. Quite the opposite.

[Eksadiss]

yea blood tests sound a bit better then urine tests

[humvee2800]

I say cover those addicts is gasoline and light em up.

[Axeman]

Honestly I see no problem with this, if there is one thing I can't stand it is freeloaders!

[triafrae]

Seems like a good idea to me.