Great post. Your analysis of current legislation is thorough and well thought out.

Have you considered how Indiana’s decline in economic freedom has a broader effect than even the three issues you brought out? This is because economic freedom- the freedom of normal people to use their time and resources how they see fit as long as it doesn’t infringe on others’ rights to do the same- is a more basic reality. And if that’s taken away, then it affects all other aspects of society.

At the Economic Freedom Project, we’ve produced a short two minute video showing how economic freedom IS declining all across America. We’d love to hear what you think!

Thanks!

Mike

Now, let’s look at the costs of the drug testing. Most drug tests cost between $25 to $30. Let’s use $25 per test to test 100,000 people comes to $2.5 million. And that doesn’t include the costs of all of the paperwork and bureaucracy.

So, in the best case, the State will save….ummmm….NOTHING. IT WILL COST THE TAXPAYERS an additional $340,000.

Yep, stupid and not cost effective.

First, Indiana family services administration has estimated that setting up such a program would cost over $1 million….before you save one penny in reduced welfare payments.

Second, Florida did a pilot project where they found less than 2% failed the initial drug test. National studies show that standard drug testing produce between 5% and 10% false positives. So, with that high of a false positive rate, we will also have to have a system of appeals for test results, thus incurring more costs and bureaucracy. And this doesn’t even address the court cases that are going to ensue.

Studies also show that standard drug testing also produces false negatives between 10% and 15%. So, when you add in the 5% to 10% false positives to the 10% to 15% false negatives, anywhere between 15% and 25% of the results will be WRONG.

Then one should ask what type of drug test will be done. For current use or past use? So, if a mother with two children has gone through treatment and is not a current user are we going to reject her and let her children go hungry based on her PRIOR usage?

And what about alcohol? Are we going to start testing for alcohol usage? Your logic that “if they can afford to buy drugs” should also apply to “if they can afford to buy booze”. But, we all know that your body metasiticizes alcohol so fast that one can simply abstain for a week and pass a test. So, we are going to penalize drug users but not alcohol users….hardly fair.

And, lastly, there is the issue of morality. Addiction is an ILLNESS that requires medical and psychological treatment. So, if we test all of these people and get positive results are we willing to provide the very costly subsidies to our local mental health treatment centers to offer treatment? That’s like saying we are going to test you for cancer but if you test positive, tough shit. And what about the children of the person who tests positive? Because mommy smoked a joint a month ago, do you really want to let her children go hungry?

Like I said, stupid and not cost effective.