Road To Anywhere - Will Pee For Food

Hello faithful passengers, and welcome to the new weekly blog segment Road To Anywhere! Every Friday one of your pals from RTM is going to post a little vignette taken from their week that's about anything but movies. This week, Gabe discusses a Facebook trend that's been popping up left and right in his news feed lately.

DRUG TESTS FOR FOOD STAMPS

If your Facebook feed looks anything like mine, the image to the right is a familiar one. Though (for the most part) I don't consider myself "conservative", I have a lot of friends who are. As a result, I've probably seen the "Should welfare recipients be randomly drug tested to continue to receive benefit checks?" question pop up a dozen times just in the last week. Personally, I'm in favor of it.

I should probably explain my position. I am a recipient of welfare benefits. My children receive medical coverage - without which we would be destitute, and one of my children might very likely be dead - and our whole household receives food stamps. Recently, our food stamps were slashed by two-thirds, and I can only think that welfare cheaters are to blame. Well, if drug testing would give those cheaters the metaphorical boot and help me feed my kids, I'm onboard. I know I don't have anything to fear from a drug test, and neither does anyone under my roof, so - in the words of George W. Bush - BRING IT ON!

Having said that, I should qualify my statement by saying that I am only in favor of drug testing if it is across the board. By that, I mean two things. Firstly, it shouldn't be random. Absolutely everyone who applies should have to piss in a cup while a nurse watches. This really is the only way to be sure that there is any fairness to the procedure. I mean, they may say it's random, but how do we know that someone in the Medicaid office isn't just picking Shaniquas and Jamals out for testing while they let the Skylers and Melodys slide? I knew a guy named Skyler once, and he was an addict. Nope. The system is too susceptible to corruption. Everybody gets tested or nobody gets tested.

Secondly, it needs to be applied to every form of government aid. What do I mean by "government aid"? I mean any time anyone anywhere applies for anything that would involve any governmental or governmentally administered organization either distributing money or something of monetary value, or relinquishing claim to money or something of monetary value, that person (or persons) has to be tested for drugs. Poor person applying for welfare? Drug test. Filmmaker applying for an arts grant? Drug test. Student applying for student aid? Drug test. Taxpayer applying for a deduction? Drug test. Hurricane victim applying for disaster relief? Drug test. CEO applying for a government bailout? Drug test.

I'm a welfare recipient, and I'm willing to do what I have to for the good of my country, but I'm not willing to do it alone. If the poor need to be tested for drugs in order to receive potentially lifesaving aid from the government, so should everybody else. It's called fair play. It's called equality. It's the American way.

Oh, did I mention that I work for a lab that does drug testing? Hellooooo job security!

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