Random drug testing for those on unemployment benefits

[donnashuggy]

What about random drug tests for people that work?

Why discriminate? 

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/young-lnp-want-party-to-consider-adopting-random-drug-...

[a_dingo_ate_my_chinwagger]

I'd like to see random  on-the-job testing of our elected members of Parliament, police and firemen, both for drugs and alcohol. You know what they are so fond of telling us. . . "If you haven't done anything wrong, you shouldn't have anything to hide."

(Once, a long time ago my work-place was debating the introduction of clocked time cards;  clock on, clock off, punch your card to prove it. I stood up and said yes I was all for it just so long as it applied to every employee, in the interests of fairness and equity.

The motion was eventually defeated because there was no way that the doctors and consulting medical specialists were going to be subject to such scrutiny. Win for the workers on this one.)

[***super_nova***]

---

@*elizabeths-mum* wrote:

That is why it stays an ideal, especially as many will fall off and have to go through the process again (and again). Surely it would have to be a better investment than the legal and human costs of drug related crime and the long term costs of a disability support pension for someone who eventually causes such damage to themselves that they are incapable of work.

---

But, drug/and/or alcohol addiction is usually just manifestation of underlaying mental problem.  Unless that is addressed there is not much hope.  I know people who had kids on drugs, and getting them a place in rehab was very hard, and waiting list months long.  And I am talking about programs that were not cheap.  Low income people  would have found it much more difficult. 

If people who use drugs should have their benefits cut, why not people who are clinically obese or smokers?  They are also causing significant harm to themselves, which costs the community a fortune in medical care.   Or maybe people who cause their illness should not be covered under medicare and have to pay for the treatment they receive.

[*elizabeths-mum*]

I'm not really sure why my post was singled out for you to disagree with given that I am the one with the ideal that there should be more rehabilitation?

Not all addicts have 'mental problems' in the diagnostic sense although someone who suffer from a mental illness may take refuge in the temporary relief that drugs and alcohol bring. Some mental illnesses follow  the use of mind altering drugs.

Regarding removing benefits from other groups of people beside drug users, I had viewed the question as relating to those using illicit drugs, although reading the article does not actually state that, so that would need to be clarified before extending the rules to legal abuses.

[***super_nova***]

---

@*elizabeths-mum* wrote:

I'm not really sure why my post was singled out for you to disagree with given that I am the one with the ideal that there should be more rehabilitation?

---

Sorry!  Did not mean to "single' you out,  it is more like follow up to what you said in answer  to some other suggestions above 🙂 

[ashjoma]

I have not read all of this, but I have no problem with drug testing.

If I am working the night shift and paying my money to support others, especially the losers out there, they can be drug tested.

And I am happy to be drug tested, if I am asked.  I don't drink alcohol or take drugs so makes no difference to me.

.