About time someone brought this about

[ClakarEQ]

If you're unemployeed, are you still a tax payer?

[Gypsiyee]

don't know anyone on food stamps that pays taxes or even has a good job.

I do. My sister. She's college educated and has worked 2 jobs for 5 years. She works with mentally handicapped people, an important job that few people do and that happens to pay pretty badly because it's service work. She also just lost her house and is getting ready to file chapter 7, a huge stress factor because she has a 2 year old. But I guess because she spends 25 bucks on pot once in a while in her 70 hour work weeks she doesn't deserve those food stamps to make sure her child is cared for.

[Gypsiyee]

where did i say welfare is for the taxpayers?

are you kidding

Uh, the ones collecting unemployment are the taxpayers. You pay into that safety net the entire time you're employed, so in the event you lose your job you have something to fall back onto.

welfare isn't unemployment insurance. two completely different animals.

[Drem]

Also, what about all the false positives that could screw up someone's life? You really can get flagged for opiates if you have a poppy seed muffin in the morning. How about prescription medications that can cause flags as well? Vicodin is basically tylenol and codeine, and codeine is an opiate and will flag as such. Yet I don't think vicodin prescriptions are exactly uncommon. While vicodin may be an obvious source of false positives, it's hardly the only one, and you can't expect every average guy out there to know every single possibility for drug interaction and what different drug tests might flag their prescriptions as.

Also, do you honestly think the utterly massive bureaucracy that this would require is going to check all those factors? You honestly think that there will be ANY easy process to get a false positive cleared off your record? Somehow, I don't think so.

Furthermore, are you going to test for tobacco or alcohol? How is blowing money on a fifth of Absolut or a carton of Marlboro's any better than blowing the same amount on weed? You don't want YOUR tax money being used to buy weed by someone who's out of work. Guess what: who cares. Can a Jewish person object to someone using the money to buy bacon? Hell, I didn't like my tax dollars going to Iraq. Guess how far I'd get demanding they not be used for that.

In any case, the expense of setting all this up, including the test taking legions, the bureaucracy to track it all, and the medical technicians to process it all would cost vastly more than you'd save. Hell, a friend of mine worked as medical lab tech in the Air Force once upon a time. Due to budget, time and manpower constraints, they never processed even all of the serviceman drug tests that got sent to them. They'd put all the samples on a table, sweep 80% of them into the trash and just mark them all as clean, before actually testing the remainder. You honestly think a testing program for tens of millions would be more efficient? Hah.

No, ultimately it is a bad idea. It's unnecessary government intrusion into people's private lives, which there's too much of already.

-Arlos

alcohol's already taken into consideration anyway. if you can't not drink for 3 days before a drug test then i think you're in pretty sad shape and should get your shit together anyway and probably nto be taking my tax money for your beer and cigarettes and pot. seriously i've never met anyone on welfare that deserves it. i'm sure in other cities there are normal people that just got fucked that are genuinely using it for a couple of weeks while they look for new work. but the only people i've ever met that use welfare abuse welfare. and it makes me wish systems like this were in place.

i'd bet it would cost a little bit of money for the tests, too. i also think something like that would probably get sponsored. like if you had to stop by every week and pass a test before you pick up your check it would work beautifully. it'd make all the lazy jackasses that walk in and sign a couple papers to get free money for 4 or 5 months probably not bother with unemployment at all and just try to actually get new jobs fast. i just think anything supporting leaving welfare the way it is right now basically supports people being lazy mooches. and i don't mean any disrespect to the people using welfare like they're supposed to right now

[Drem]

don't know anyone on food stamps that pays taxes or even has a good job.

I do. My sister. She's college educated and has worked 2 jobs for 5 years. She works with mentally handicapped people, an important job that few people do and that happens to pay pretty badly because it's service work. She also just lost her house and is getting ready to file chapter 7, a huge stress factor because she has a 2 year old. But I guess because she spends 25 bucks on pot once in a while in her 70 hour work weeks she doesn't deserve those food stamps to make sure her child is cared for.

i'm not talkin about people like her. i don't really ever meet or hear about people like that on welfare. i'm pretty sure the program is there to help people like her. in my opinion it is, anyway

and i dunno, if you want free food you could probably just stop smokin pot for a little while. is it really that big of a deal ? because it's kind of a stupid defense. "hey i need free money for food to sustain my child because i just spent mine on drugs" sounds kinda bullshit to me /shrug

[Arlos]

Except we're not talking about welfare.

We're talking about Unemployment.

They're two utterly different animals. Completely and totally different.

-Arlos

[Drem]

ok whatever, that doesn't change anything i said. because i'm talking about unemployment and food stamps. you could've just called me a dumbass. sorry tuggan~

[Gypsiyee]

don't know anyone on food stamps that pays taxes or even has a good job.

I do. My sister. She's college educated and has worked 2 jobs for 5 years. She works with mentally handicapped people, an important job that few people do and that happens to pay pretty badly because it's service work. She also just lost her house and is getting ready to file chapter 7, a huge stress factor because she has a 2 year old. But I guess because she spends 25 bucks on pot once in a while in her 70 hour work weeks she doesn't deserve those food stamps to make sure her child is cared for.

i'm not talkin about people like her. i don't really ever meet or hear about people like that on welfare. i'm pretty sure the program is there to help people like her. in my opinion it is, anyway

and i dunno, if you want free food you could probably just stop smokin pot for a little while. is it really that big of a deal ? because it's kind of a stupid defense. "hey i need free money for food to sustain my child because i just spent mine on drugs" sounds kinda bullshit to me /shrug

so you're saying that if you're on hard financial times and pretty much every cent you have goes to some form of bill, too fucking bad, you might as well hate your life and not have any enjoyment out of it whatsoever? 25-50 bucks a month is seriously too much to spend on yourself? this is what I was talking about - should I also tell her that she should go ahead and forget about buying Hunter any special little treats like the occasional piece of chocolate because that's an unnecessary personal indulgence? sorry your life sucks, but I'm gonna go ahead and say it should probably suck more just to remind you how worthless you are for falling on hard times. sounds like a great idea - let's up the suicide rate.

you act like all people who have any form of government assistance are criminals and should live like they're in jail without any personal liberties. almost all people who take any sort of government assistance have at one point paid into it just like you and me.

I think your view on this is really skewed and misguided and that, no offense, you really don't understand the topic - your stance seems to be reached from a variety of other opinions, not really facts. Food stamps aren't welfare. It's government assistance, but not a welfare check. Unemployment isn't welfare. Unemployment can't really even be classified as government assistance. Individuals pay into it and companies pay into it. It's not tax, it's insurance.

[Drem]

$50 is like every raw material in my kitchen, like rice, vegetables, and maybe even some fruit, for a month. you don't need to tell me about being poor. i live the poor student life every day. not only do i rack up massive debt, i can't even get food stamps because they think i don't need it or something. i don't know why people like you think that when they're dead fuckin broke and have to get on support to pay for their food to keep their child alive, that they should be spending $50 on a bag of drugs. get real

[Harrison]

I do. My sister. She's college educated and has worked 2 jobs for 5 years. She works with mentally handicapped people, an important job that few people do and that happens to pay pretty badly because it's service work. She also just lost her house and is getting ready to file chapter 7, a huge stress factor because she has a 2 year old. But I guess because she spends 25 bucks on pot once in a while in her 70 hour work weeks she doesn't deserve those food stamps to make sure her child is cared for.

She's doing it wrong. I can't even take that fucking statement seriously it is so rife with dumb.

Like Drem said, an extra $50 can go quite a ways if you're not braindead.

[Gidan]

Regardless of how anyone feels about whether people should be getting the check or not from the gov't, false positives are a real concern. I have never done a single illegal drug in my life, however I have tested positive on a drug test before. It does happen, and unless there is an easy painless way to deal with those, the system will hurt people who have done absolutely nothing wrong.

I wish I could get by on $50 a month for food in my house, however feeding 4 people, I don't think $50 a week would get us by and that's not taking into account trying to feed kids healthy meals.

On a side note, I have known people on welfare who needed it. These were not people abusing the system. These were people who were applying for every job they could find, they were living in what amounts to a shed, had no vehicle, no available public transportation, couldn't even afford a bike. They didn't have the money for any clothes, which makes getting a job even at McDonalds difficult. Try living that life and tell me that welfare is wrong. Try not having a phone, walking into a McDonalds in rags and applying for a job. See how many job offers you get. Now lets say one of them falsely tested positive for drugs and their welfare was taken away. How exactly would they live?

[Drem]

trust me i don't survive on $50 a month either. that just buys all the basics. and i'm just showing how far $50 can go for me. if you eat three full meals a day with a family of four then obviously we're in different ball parks. i eat once or twice a day from home and the rest at work for free because that's about as much as i can afford.

but i dunno, if you fail a drug test and it's false then you just tell them that and they tell you to a) do it again, or b) come back in a day or two and do it again. it's not the end of the world. maybe in the past it was but drug tests are pretty lenient. here in oregon, anyway. i think a minor inconvenience is a small price to pay for the results we'd get. drug tests keep a fair amount of shitheads out of certain job fields so i don't see why it wouldn't work for food stamps and unemployment too

[Eziekial]

Little did I realize how much joy a bag of pot can bring to an otherwise horrible life

I wonder how much joy(tm) a crack rock brings? Or some cocaine! Maybe I should just gorge myself on bags of Cheetos. Silly people I see at the grocery store that get excited about a shiny apple. They need to taste the sweet nectar of malt liquor to really know bliss.....

[Harrison]

And honestly, I don't care if it's legal or not. If you're getting high instead of putting your efforts towards looking for work, feeding your kids better, etc.

You fail.

I probably couldn't count how many times I could have had a better meal if my father wasn't a raging alcoholic while I grew up.

[ClakarEQ]

That was why I said then ALL drugs needs to be tested, unless you're on life giving prescription drugs, you shouldn't be buying things to make you feel better when you're hungry and need food, right? Nicotine(sp), Sudafed, Prozac, asprine, etc I mean c-mon, you don't NEED that shit, it can't be more important than food.

To get a GOV hand out you have to be as clean as a baby born from a virgin Mary, yeah that's what we need, that will fix it.

[Harrison]

I disagree with aspirin and the like.

Specifically because aspirin can lower a fever, and for a child this can be a life-saving measure. If you want to be more specific, can save your life if you're having a heart attack as well.

[Zanchief]

And honestly, I don't care if it's legal or not. If you're getting high instead of putting your efforts towards looking for work, feeding your kids better, etc.

You fail.

I probably couldn't count how many times I could have had a better meal if my father wasn't a raging alcoholic while I grew up.

So you think the gov. should stop people from buying anything that isn't essential to their life? I thought you were the anarchist around here.

[Harrison]

Entertainment can be essential to life as well as many other things some would deem non-essential.

Drinking, smoking, shooting up, snorting, etc. aren't in that category.

Buy a book, rent a movie, go for a walk, go for a jog, go rock climbing, etc. etc. Not many would criticize you, or in this case, Gyps' sister for doing these things if they're "struggling".

But to say dropping $50 a month on drugs when she's "struggling" is alright, ridiculous.

[brinstar]

The drug tests will end up costing more than the potential savings you're expecting to see so the result would dictate an increase in taxes for those that work in order to sustain our police state mentality. We will all lose in the end, not gain by this.

i'm not trying to be a dick but this is actually wrong

like i said before, drug tests (even lab confirmations) are not expensive

say you do 50 drug tests a month. if you catch ONE GUY who would've otherwise walked away with an $800 unemployment check, boom-- suddenly you have the money to pay for four to six more months' worth of tests. arguing against this legistlature because of its cost will not work.

there is no perfect answer for the false positive issue, but the way our program addresses it is by a) keeping a very tight rein on medication permissions and b) making sure everyone is WELL aware of commonplace foods and other sources that may cause a false positive-- yes, including poppyseed muffins.

[Harrison]

I don't know. Drug tests are a lot more advanced now than they were even a few years ago.

I munch on Everything bagels quite regularly. They're loaded with poppyseeds. I get drug tested regularly and never has it shown up.

Shit, I've taken a test while on prescribed Vicodin and it didn't show up. (Maybe they cross reference it to any open prescriptions automatically, I'm not sure.)

I don't think foods cause false positives in normal people anymore quite like they used to.

[brinstar]

mmmm yes they can

first of all, not ALL poppyseeds will trip the opiate test, the opiate content depends on the plant's environment, its location on the globe, and the time of season that it is harvested

and second of all, while yes there are some pretty advanced tests out there, there are also some shite quality ones.

third, different tests have different metabolite cutoff levels. while you might be able to eat some bagels and slip under one test, another will peg you cold

fourth, not all sticks even test for opiates

[Gidan]

NCAA ones do, I can tell you that from experience

[ClakarEQ]

That assumes you've got a 50:1 ratio so at least 1 out of that 50 fails and that 1 guy is getting 800.00 not 100 or something but I don't know the numbers so I digress.

I do know some over the counter pot tests cost 20.00 or so and no lab is involved so that leaves me thinking >20.00 if you put it out to a lab, then you've got the delay, maybe a week.

There is also an assumption that if this were to be enacted that folks wouldn't trick the system, like bring their kids urine. Also, other than pot and maybe a few other drugs are detectable after a week, some as few as 24hours.

So you may catch the pot heads, but I suspect a good lot of the folks are crack types, no idea what is more expensive of the low end drugs tho (pot vs crack for example)

I think nicotine should be in that mix, along with the other items I mentioned (well I'll drop asprine, I agree with harri there and I'm being a sarcastic prick in his thread anyhow) or hair testing should be required. I think you should also require HIV and all matters of blood work to be done, do they have Hep C, what about Cicle Cell(sp). I mean we need to know if we're throwing good money after bad.

But golly gee, what about medical pot, what about the Doc saying a drink a day is good for the heart? O, I guess those folks will be exceptions? how would that work?

[Spazz]

Im pretty sure crack is expensive as a mother fucker to be addicted to claker.

[Harrison]

There is also an assumption that if this were to be enacted that folks wouldn't trick the system, like bring their kids urine.

You've not been tested in a long time, have you?