About 21.3 percent of Americans take place in government assistance programs every month. This is according to Census.gov. Of the 50 states, 15 different states have passed legislation that includes drug testing or screening for public assistance applicants. The theory is that drug testing for people that receive public funds to live shouldn’t be spending money on drugs or alcohol. While this is good in theory, is it the most cost-effective way to spend money? Does it actually help?

Both questions relate to the other, but they bring up a few other questions that need to be answered. And unfortunately, the results are just as muddy as the question. But let’s lay it out to help you form an opinion anyway.

Here’s the main underlying fact of the situation. Most states that drug test turn up very few positive results. From a Time news article:

“In Tennessee, where drug testing was enacted for welfare recipients last month, only one person in the 800 who applied for help tested positive. In Florida, during the four months the state tested for drug use, only 2.6{b340406b661c1e5732b86e4172a84f651d0df9d8967334cfa4a3aae0d4c8bfbd} of applicants tested positive.”

Now the biggest question is are these restrictions worth it? There’s an argument that can be made that drug testing can scare assistance applicants into not taking drugs anymore. It cleans up their act. It would also be expected that whatever money is spent on it, would be worth the cost because these people will be in a better mindset to help society and find a job again.

But the other argument is that these tests are spending way more than their worth. If no one is using drugs, they why do we need to test for them? In fact, according to the Time article, 8 percent of people in Florida use drugs, so the applicants use drugs at a much lower rate than the general population. People also argue that this increases the line between the rich and poor even more.

The argument for and against drug testing welfare applicants is complicated. And it definitely needs further experimenting. Perhaps the federal government could provide a grant for a state to drug test their applicants with no punishment to see if the welfare-recipients use drugs at the same or at a different rate compared to normal citizens.