Drug Testing for Benefits?

Calls for letter to the editor, tweets, calls out to legislators, etc.

Edited from an email thread from state team:

House Republicans are advocating for a bill that would require Vermonters on reach up to get drug tested, you can read about it here.  This is a horrible proposal and we should spread the word that this is what the R's are pushing.  Does the Governor support this policy?  Letters to the editor and calls into radio shows would be really helpful here."

 Bill is H866.

Although something similar has come up in the past quite a few times, most recently with S.120 in 2015, these legislative stabs at providing an added layer of accountability are completely misguided. 

Similar legislation has been found unconstitutional in Florida.

A similar piece of legislation was a flop in Arizona, saving the state only $4,000 instead of the $1.6mm it was projected to save while requiring an extremely disproportionate amount of bureaucracy and resources. 

These programs are meant to help Vermonters when they are at a low point. The last thing we want to do is kick someone when they're already down. We aren't going to help an addiction crisis by plunging people who are already using and need help further into poverty and hopelessness.

It will ultimately prevent parents from being able to put food on the table and the negative effects will be put directly to the children in a way that is unacceptable. 

Fortunately, Reach Up and Reach Ahead have already been functioning as a connection to addiction recovery for many recipients without any kind of mandate.

It doesn't work legally, it doesn't work financially, and it doesn't work morally. 

While the motivation for the bill might not be economic, arguing that the bill will not help Vermont economically certainly counts amongst the reasons that we should not even consider such legislation.