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| Green Gubernatorial Candidate Says No to State Drug-Testing Plan for Welfare Recipients. |
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Committee to Elect Douglas Campbell and Adrianna Buonarroti Doug Campbell, Green Party candidate for governor, declared his opposition to indiscriminate testing of welfare recipients for drug use, describing it as an unreasonable and discriminatory invasion of privacy. Campbell was commenting on a decision Friday by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals allowing the state to institute a policy of mandatory testing to determine eligibility for public aid. The policy had been blocked by a lower court's injunction since November of 1999. Campbell pointed out one unintended implication in the logic of the decision. "If protection of children is the basis for declaring it reasonable to inflict drug-testing on parents who need financial assistance, then it's reasonable to require random drug-testing of all parents, so all children are protected. Moreover, the proposed rule includes people who don't have any children." Asked if he would implement the testing program if he were elected, Campbell said, "Absolutely not. Friday's decision would only allow, not require, the state to test for drugs. What we need is less government invasion of people's private lives, not more." Campbell's running mate, Adrianna Buonarroti, was angered by the decision, saying it "unfairly targets the poor. If the court believes that this loss of privacy is warranted by preventing the exposure of children to drugs, why doesn't the state require that everyone with children be subjected to random drug-testing?" Regarding the state's plan to withhold benefits to those who refuse to be tested or who refuse treatment when they test positive, Buonarroti said, "People in poverty are not any more likely to use drugs than the restof the population. The stigma of being subjected at any time to a drug test without any cause except temporary financial hardship is an unbelievable insult to the poor. It is class profiling, unfairly targeting those who are more likely to be innocent than guilty of any crime, based solely on the source of their income." Referring to the Democratic and Republican gubernatorial candidates'
reported willingness to implement the drug-testing program, she added, "The Democratic and Republican candidates have been talking aboutequal
rights and equal liberties for everyone. This program, which their campaigns have stated that
they support, is certainly not equal rights and equal liberties." |
