In an organized essay of about 380 words, (1) explain in your own words what the writer is saying AND (2) take a position on the
writer's argument. (Issues you might wish to address include: Do %???agree or disagree totally with the writer's opinion or only to a
certain extent? Is the evidence used to support the writer's argument convincing or weak? If weak, can you offer a better argument?
Can you cite a personal experience that either supports or undermines what the writer has said?) As you write your essay, you should
periodically refer to statements in the passage you are discussing.
Adapted from an article by Alan Cahn
1. Under a new Florida law, people applying for welfare have to take a drug test at their own expense. If they pass, they are eligible for benefits and the state reimburses them for the test. If they fail, they are denied welfare for a year, until they take another test. Mandatory drug testing for welfare applicants is becoming a popular idea across the country with many states-including Alabama, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Louisiana-considering adopting laws like Florida's. At the federal level, one Louisiana senator
has introduced the Drug Free Families Act of 2011, which would require all 50 states to drug-test welfare applicants. And the focus isn't limited to welfare. Last July, Indiana adopted drug tests for participants in a state job-training program, and Ohio is currently considering legislation to require the unemployed be tested before they receive unemployment benefits. Drug testing the needy has an undeniable populist appeal. It taps into deeply held beliefs about the deserving and undeserving poor, with proponents arguing that there are large numbers of drug users utilizing tax dollars to support their habits. But as government policy, drug testing is being oversold. Several studies, including a 1996 report from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, have found that there is no significant difference in the rate of illegal-drug use by welfare applicants and other people. Another study found that 70% of illegal-drug users between the age of 18 and 49 are employed full time. Drug-testing laws are often touted as a way of saving tax dollars, but a recent study found that the costs of drug-testing programs were likely to exceed any money saved in denied benefits. Given that cost-benefit reality, it is hard to escape the suspicion that what is really behind the drive to drug-test benefits applicants is a desire to stigmatize the needy. The fact is there are all sorts of people who benefit from government programs: businessmen get state contracts, farmers receive crop subsidies, and retired state workers receive pensions. The pro-drug-testing movement, however, is focusing exclusively on the unemployed and welfare recipients-easy targets. If Florida and other states are really concerned about drug use, they should adopt stricter laws and better enforcement policies aimed at the whole population, not just the most vulnerable. But these laws are not really about drug use. They are about, in these difficult economic times, making things a little harder for the poor.