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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Australia to drug test welfare recipients

195 replies

Carolinesbeanies · 31/08/2017 10:56

AIBU to totally agree with this?

www.newscientist.com/article/2145603-australia-plans-random-drug-tests-for-people-receiving-welfare/

(Not dumping and running, but Im working a late today and wont be back till late evening. Didnt want to let this article go under the radar!)

OP posts:
orlantina · 31/08/2017 11:21

Why just drugs?
There's alcohol.
Gambling
Cigarettes

All addictive. Only 1 is illegal.All can do social harm.

Amd724 · 31/08/2017 11:21

Additionally, drug testing welfare recipients in the US has been seen by some, such as the ACLU (American Civil Liberities Union), as a violation of the 4th Amendment of the US Constitution. It prohibits unwarranted searches and seizures. To search someone, using a drug test, without probable cause, in order to receive a government benefit, is a violation of our constitution.

It's not just legally wrong, its morally wrong, and it doesn't work. It also continues to paint welfare recipients as feckless, scrounges, when they have lower if not equal drug abuse rates as those who are working. In the US its even more insidious as our welfare system is incredibly selfish and can barely be called a system. All these people do if they're on a long term addiction, is find a different want to fund their addiction. The last thing they're doing is filling out the numerous forms, interviews, and faff needed to get the paltry amount that my government gives them.

QueenOfVipers · 31/08/2017 11:22

Arguably, with the links upthread stating that this actually costs more than it saves while humiliating everyone, it's the frothing at the mouth idiots who think that if someone doesn't spend their life on their knees never buying anything remotely wasteful or bad that they don't deserve to access a welfare net that is there for all...

Welfare is absolutely legally their income and their own money, their cash asset.
Morally debate it all you like - legally it's their money and morally I think so too (which is just an opinion you're free to disagree with)
If someone is paid by our taxes, do they not still deserve the right to decide their own spending and financial choices?
Widows who receive widows benefit which to my knowledge can be claimed while in work
DLA (which can be claimed even if in work as it's not supposed to be lived on - it's supposed to go towards extra costs incurred in being disabled, in a nutshell)
Pensioners
Some students (eg EMA which is in parts of the UK still)
Carers who receive carers allowance.
People who claim wtc (so are claimants but still work).

Again, I ask you, where is the line to be drawn?
No one has responded to my above scenario either... I wonder if you'd say I shouldn't be allowed to claim, in such a scenario? I'd certainly fail a drug test

YouTheCat · 31/08/2017 11:23

Lurking, I believe they should start at the top. Let's drug test our MPs for a start - see how clean they are.

orlantina · 31/08/2017 11:23

If someone is found to be on drugs, then maybe there should be a programme to address the addiction.

Positive approaches.

If people are addicted and then are denied welfare, how will they get the money to survive?

Crime
Sex work

Which does more social harm.

ibbleobbleblackbubble · 31/08/2017 11:23

Should they be tested for junk food too?
should they be refused benefits if they are overweight don't exercise enough?

QueenOfVipers · 31/08/2017 11:24

That's also not including public services, politicians etc. who are paid by the state, so is it everyone, or just the unemployed?

WorkingClassHeroine · 31/08/2017 11:25

So how about sanctioning benefits recipients who are drug free but drink alcohol/expensive coffee? Or buy lots of new clothes? Who gets to determine acceptable expenditure?
Maybe we should just stick 'em all in state issued uniforms to make them easily identifiable so we can all throw rotten fruit at them if they so much as light up a fag? Hmm

Much more sensible, from an economic point of view, would be to legalise the controlled substances and tax them.

orlantina · 31/08/2017 11:26

I wonder what the Daily Mail would make of this story...

ibbleobbleblackbubble · 31/08/2017 11:28

What about testing and monitoring everyone who benefits from anything which is taxpayer funded?
So that's all of us right?
it collapses immediately you start any kind of rational enquiry

MrsOverTheRoad · 31/08/2017 11:28

The problem with it is that as a very elderly lady said to me "All that will do is create more problems for people who've already got enough of them."

She went on to speak about families with addicts as their only adult...their benefits stop...then no food for the kids.

It's a shit idea.

TheNaze73 · 31/08/2017 11:29

YANBU. It should include all drug addicts including smokers

Amd724 · 31/08/2017 11:29

And there's another fallacy, that the welfare recipient money isn't their money, its taxpayer money. How do you know that this person who has to claim welfare, wasn't just a taxpayer days, weeks, or months ago? Stop feeding into the idea of a dude or woman constantly on benefits, not contributing to society, and just sitting on their ass, doing drugs and drinking away your hard earned money. One, you contribute so little into the system (unless you're a considerably high earner, like millions), and second, statistically these people are very few. The majority of people on benefits in the UK and USA are actually working. In the USA, the majority of people on benefits are on it for a short period of time, as our system does not allow you stay on benefits for a considerable period, except Medicaid, disability (even that is questionable, as they find ways to decide that you're able to work), and Social Security (which is a pension actually, but falls under the welfare state, as its given to those regardless of how much they've put in).

Will they be testing poor pensioners to see if they're on benefits? No, they're going after young people trying to access food stamps for their kids while they work multiple jobs. And then Florida had the utter gall to make them pay for this insidious drug test. Disgusting indeed.

StUmbrageinSkelt · 31/08/2017 11:30

Yeah I'd like our politicians tested for alcohol abuse (looking at you Tony Abbott!).

I live in one of the cities which is having this imposed. I am passionately opposed to it as it won't do any good. Fund services for our young people, don't punish them.

Once the Welfare Card comes in as well, it's going to be very socially volatile. Absolutely fucking bollocks the lot of it esp with the cost of administering the Welfare Card. I am on a Carer Pension and am mortgagefree with no debts. I am going to be income managed if they do what they say they are going to do. Insanity.

Notevilstepmother · 31/08/2017 11:30

Have some of you read the article?

They are not stopping the welfare of drug users, just not giving them cash to spend on drugs, but 80% of their payment will be a card that can only be used for food and rent.

A second positive test will get them help.

It's not a bad idea in my opinion. Welfare is to feed and house people, not to buy nice cars for drug dealers.

ibbleobbleblackbubble · 31/08/2017 11:30

What about people who waste time compulsively checking Facebook or other social media... that's an addiction isn't it?

LurkingHusband · 31/08/2017 11:31

Lurking, I believe they should start at the top. Let's drug test our MPs for a start - see how clean they are.

Or, following the Australian logic, just shoot them.

They're probably guilty of something, so it's best not to take chances.

SerfTerf · 31/08/2017 11:31

Well said Amd.

BankWadger · 31/08/2017 11:32

Maybe Australia ouggt to look at their shitty shitty attitudes to the native Aboriginal people and put more effort into genuinely helping turn their quality of life around. Because the large majority of drug users/alcoholics in Australia are sadly from those communities.

tinymeteor · 31/08/2017 11:33

Welfare is not their own money. It is tax payers money, they should behave accordingly, that is to say gratefully and legally

I could not disagree with you more. Bullshit in every dimension.

Most welfare recipients are taxpayers too. We don't buy people's autonomy and dignity when we provide income support. We don't buy the right to subject them to medical procedures. We don't buy the right to decide what they spend their income on. We don't buy them.

Add to that the huge racial overtones of this policy in Australia, and it's a totally reprehensible abuse of government power. But if it makes you feel like a virtuous taxpayer who couldn't possibly ever need help from your fellow citizens, good for you. I look forward to you declining to collect the state pension.

orlantina · 31/08/2017 11:33

Welfare is to feed and house people, not to buy nice cars for drug dealers

How would you like your tax credits?
Your pension?

PyongyangKipperbang · 31/08/2017 11:33

Being on benefits doesnt lead to drug taking but drug addictions can lead to a life on benefits.

When someone has lost their job, family, home etc to their addiction how on earth would losing their benefits help? All it will do is drive up drug related crime which is a problem as it is, how will increasing that be any better for anyone? I would rather have a few pence of my tax go to people with addictions than have my handbag pinched or my house burgled.

YouTheCat · 31/08/2017 11:33

I do hope you mean 'shoot the MPs'. Grin

Gottagetmoving · 31/08/2017 11:34

YABU
How bloody awful! Its pathetic that people cannot understand addiction is not a bloody choice!
Addicts can't 'get a job and fund it themselves'
Real addicts will steal to get the money they need. Of course they shouldn't...but the addiction gives them little choice.
Before people judge and comment they should find out more about addiction.

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