Wisconsin Moves Forward With Plans to Drug Test Food Stamp Recipients
For the first five years of my son's life I was on public assistance; I never really wanted to be, but it was just a necessity.
If you've ever been on assistance of any kind, you know it's not easy. You often spend hours waiting in line at the human services building that's never conveniently located to your house, there's stacks of paperwork that need to be filled out (then you're sent home if you forgot once piece of verification like a paycheck stub, sigh), and the work isn't even done once you leave the building. For as long as you're on food stamps, state provided insurance or cash assistance, you're filling out paperwork every single month; which is a job in itself.
Now add something else- a drug test.
According to Fox 32 Chicago, the state of Wisconsin is moving forward with plans to drug test all "able-bodied adults applying for food stamps."
The testing won't happen right away though; the legislature has four months to look everything over and it could take a year for approval and for testing to begin.
In an interesting twist, anyone who fails the test would be eligible for state-funded rehabilitation treatment.
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