Mandatory drug testing for welfare recipients is an ineffectual way of dealing with a symptom of a problem. If anyone thinks that people on welfare have enough money to support a national drug habit then they don't understand the drug culture. The people who are putting the money into the black market drug economy are people with sufficient discretionary funds and people on welfare don't get that kind of money even if they have half a dozen children. The proponents of such laws as mandatory drug testing for welfare recipients are just looking for a scapegoat to hide their ineptness at dealing with the problem so that they can shift the attention away from the real problem.
The real money in illegal drugs is in cocaine, which is why you always see tons of that drug on the news when the police make a bust. A gram of cocaine will sell on the street for about $40.00, more or less, depending on the purity. That gram of cocaine will fit on a teaspoon and will last a user part of an evening if the user has a friend. No one on welfare can afford such a luxurious expenditure of cash for such a short period high so the main problem in the drug culture must be with the middle class and the well-to-do class. It is not politic to go after the very people who have the means to do cocaine, because they support the economy in other ways, so they go after the ones who are least in need of such regulation and who are the most defenceless.
The next biggest money maker in the drug culture is marijuana. This non-addictive smoking drug costs from sixty to a hundred dollar for a quarter ounce, depending on the high grade quality, and that will last a regular user about a week if the user smokes about 3 to 5 joints a day. The price for this drug for a regular user is also beyond the reach of someone on welfare. If the two most popular drugs on the market are beyond the fiscal means of welfare users, then why bother testing them at all? Instead of making ineffectual attempts at slowing down a symptom, why isn't the government dealing with the source of the problem?
Prohibition has been shown by history to not work if the rationale behind instituting it is flawed. The government is never going to eradicate drug use from among the populace as long as people want to do drugs, especially since the government is profiting off of the most lethal drug on the market, which is tobacco. The government's war on drugs is for the sole reason that they wish to protect their multi-billion dollar drug market for tobacco. Tobacco is the most carcinogenic product on the market and the government knows this, which is why they are forced to print the dangers of it on the packages. They know that tobacco kills or causes disease in every person who smokes, but still they sell it. The only way to eliminate the drug problem is to take the first step and that is to make addictive drugs illegal, and non-addictive drugs legal. The worst drug on the market is not cocaine, or heroin, or meth, or any of those other phony exscuses for a drug war, but it is tobacco.
