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http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2090871,00.html
"But these laws are not really about drug use. They are about, in these difficult economic times, making things a little harder for the poor."
It really, really, ticks me off that 1) Wealthy Corporations refuse to pay their low wage employees a reasonable living wage, which forces those employees into poverty, 2) That having been forced into poverty because their full time jobs won't cover even basic living expenses, they are then treated as if it was their fault and not the fault of their employers, 3) The media has represented poor people as being fraudsters and con artists, 4) that people believe the media, 5) that charities are (and this pretty much started with the 9/11 tragedy) requiring/demanding that their recipients be "worthy" and blaming the poor and marginalized and subculture people for disasters. It worsened with Katrina - even though we now know that many of the stories of "looting and shooting" were exaggerations or even outright lies, people persist in believing that poor people are criminals and druggies. They continue to believe it even when these drug-testing-happy states now have data to show that welfare recipients have lower drug use than the general population.
I'm not saying poor people are noble - there are a few who are bad apples, just as there are in any large group of people, but what I am saying is that poor people deserve compassion and a hand up. If they seek help, they should be given it, not forced to jump through hoops and take expensive tests to prove they are "worthy" of help. It's bad enough that they have to beg for assistance because we are such an unenlightened and isolationist society that we don't notice our neighbors, employees, co-workers, friends, or even our own family are in need.
And if the media would just stop perpetuating these lies, that would help some.
"But these laws are not really about drug use. They are about, in these difficult economic times, making things a little harder for the poor."
It really, really, ticks me off that 1) Wealthy Corporations refuse to pay their low wage employees a reasonable living wage, which forces those employees into poverty, 2) That having been forced into poverty because their full time jobs won't cover even basic living expenses, they are then treated as if it was their fault and not the fault of their employers, 3) The media has represented poor people as being fraudsters and con artists, 4) that people believe the media, 5) that charities are (and this pretty much started with the 9/11 tragedy) requiring/demanding that their recipients be "worthy" and blaming the poor and marginalized and subculture people for disasters. It worsened with Katrina - even though we now know that many of the stories of "looting and shooting" were exaggerations or even outright lies, people persist in believing that poor people are criminals and druggies. They continue to believe it even when these drug-testing-happy states now have data to show that welfare recipients have lower drug use than the general population.
I'm not saying poor people are noble - there are a few who are bad apples, just as there are in any large group of people, but what I am saying is that poor people deserve compassion and a hand up. If they seek help, they should be given it, not forced to jump through hoops and take expensive tests to prove they are "worthy" of help. It's bad enough that they have to beg for assistance because we are such an unenlightened and isolationist society that we don't notice our neighbors, employees, co-workers, friends, or even our own family are in need.
And if the media would just stop perpetuating these lies, that would help some.