Drug testing has been instrumental in the drug war’s mission to identify people who use drugs and to strip them of rights, freedoms, opportunities and benefits. Drug testing policies were initially designed to protect worker safety in certain professions, but have now infiltrated almost every setting outside the home. Mandatory drug testing is routine in many schools, workplaces and hospitals, and people who test positive can be excluded from educational opportunities, fired, and denied public benefits. In recent years more than 20 states have proposed bills calling for drug testing of families receiving federal aid through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, despite the fact that this policy is fiscally, scientifically and constitutionally unsound. One of the most glaringly counterproductive drug testing policies is random student drug testing, which treats students like criminal suspects and deprives them of the trusting environment needed to conduct open and honest discussions about drug use. Additionally, students who test positive for drugs are often barred from extracurricular activities, one of the most effective known deterrents for drug use. Drug testing is also a near universal feature of the criminal justice system in the United States, with most probationers and parolees required to undergo drug testing regardless of the nature of their underlying offense or history of drug use. These drug testing policies are a huge infringement on personal privacy and have gone far beyond any reasonable mandate to improve public safety. DPA is working to promote rational drug testing policies rooted in science and public health rather than conjecture and fear.
The case Barrett v. Claycomb challenges a Missouri public college’s policy of requiring mandatory, suspicionless drug testing of all newly enrolled students (and those returning after a period of absence) as a condition of continued enrollment in the college at the student’s own expense. The college implemented such a policy despite the fact that it has had no documented drug problems over the course of its 50-year history and no reason to suspect that the students subject to testing have been engaged in the abuse of illegal drugs.
Americans Will Be Forced to Pay for the Violation of their Own Constitutional Rights
WASHINGTON, DC—Congress today approved a deal which will broadly expand drug testing. As part of the deal to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits, Democrats caved in to Republican demands to allow states to drug test people applying for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits.
Random drug testing of TANF recipients is costly, ineffective and hurts families.
A letter of opposition to AB 730 from the Drug Policy Alliance, which would require recipients of the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) program to undergo periodic drug testing as a condition of continued eligibility.
The legislation being proposed violates the constitution and imposes needless costs on taxpayers.
At a time when increasing numbers of Americans are struggling financially and relying on public assistance, implementing mean-spirited and ineffectual mandatory drug-testing policies is both unconscionable and unconstitutional.
A new bill threatens to make being jobless even harder than it already is.
Substance abuse affects families of all income levels and will not be ameliorated by simple drug testing and retaliatory restriction of benefits.
Sen. David Vitter has recently introduced The Drug Free Families Act of 2011 (S. 83). This legislation would require all new applicants for TANF benefits, and all individuals currently receiving these benefits, to submit to drug testing. This proposed policy is a misguided and punitive waste of resources, and would place unnecessary financial burdens on taxpayers and state and federal budgets in order to enact an ineffective policy.
The National Workrights Institute was founded in January 2000 by the former staff of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Taskforce on Civil Liberties in the Workplace. The Institute’s creation grew from the belief that the workplace is a critical front in the fight for human rights and the belief that this effort required the creation of a new organization dedicated to human rights in the workplace. The Institute’s mission is to be the one human rights organization which commits its entire effort to workplace issues.
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