5.5 - For the Record: another state finds the poor are not drug abusers

For the Record: another state finds the poor are not drug abusers

For the record...
...Michigan just completed a year-long pilot program to ferret out drug users among welfare recipients - without finding a single one.

Of the 443 applicants for or recipients of what the state calls its "Family Independence Program," 14 were chosen for "suspicion-based screenings." Only one was found to have "a reasonable suspicion of use of a controlled substance" and that person dropped off the rolls "for an unrelated reason" and was never tested. So not only did they not find any drug users, they didn't even find anyone to test.

Michigan thus becomes the ninth state that I know of - the others being Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Utah - that has instituted some form of drug testing program for the poor only for these states to find, without exception, that people on or applying for public aid are less likely to be using drugs than the general population.