You report that a newly elected legislator considers favorably drug testing of welfare recipients. There is not a shred of evidence such draconian measures proposed would solve the problem of illegal drug use.
What it does is demean poor people, including the innocents. As a nice and considerate touch it excludes unemployment payments for the present — although unemployment benefits are an insurance, paid by the employer and employee as well, and not a welfare payment.
Illegal drug use is by no means a problem of the poor, it affects the well-to-do by the same measure.
A very wise author, Anatole France, wrote, “The majestic egalitarianism of the law forbids the rich and the poor to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal bread.”
This in mind, I propose the same testing and punishment for our delegates and West Virginia senators.
You may call this letter, “What is good for the goose, is good for the gander.”
Daniel Kereth
Bluefield
Letters to the Editor
Discussion
Drug testing demeans the poor
Anonymous Bluefield Daily Telegraph The Bluefield Daily Telegraph Thu Nov 29, 2012, 05:00 AM EST
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