TexasCHLforum.com

On the surface this sounds great.

I'm for drug testing welfare recipients when someone can show me that it improves the cost of welfare over the cost of implementing the tests. That is, it saves us more money than it costs us. If it costs us (the taxpayers) more, forget it.. That's just increasing administrative overhead and it's more wasteful spending.

In states where this has been done, do welfare recipients have increased incidence of drug use than normal society? That is, are they more likely to use drugs? Are they more likely to be criminals? If so, that would indicate to me that drug testing might be warranted.

Now assuming we require the welfare recipient to pay for it and eliminate my cost argument, which in itself is a bit backwards, it opens up the question:
1) Is this an unreasonable search? Where is the probable cause? If there is no cause for the search, we're saying that people who need government assistance just lost some of their civil rights.

2)Couldn't this be extended to any sort of government benefit? If you receive a benefit, shouldn't you also be drug tested? Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security?