Contrary to the expectations of conservatives, there are not more poor people who use drugs than other groups. In point of fact, people who have disposable income are more likely to use drugs. The costs of drug testing for public assistance has been a poor use of money, because few people use it. On the other hand, when poor people DO need assistance for treatment of substance abuse, they are less likely to be able to afford it. Drug testing poor people as a condition of assistance is an effort to shame and humiliate them, not to keep public dollars from being used for immoral or illegal purposes.
We should be decriminalizing drugs, at the very least marijuana, and get people out of our very expensive jails, using the savings to treat drug use and abuse as a public health medical issue. It works. It has worked very well in other countries.
What we do know is that people who are under the influence of drugs, including alcohol, make bad decisions, whether those chemicals are legal or illegal. There are kinds of behavior, kinds of action that should be prohibited to people who are impaired by an altered state from any kind of substance. Therefore, we have criminalized drunk driving, quite appropriately, and should continue to be very strict about doing so. We do not only criminalize drunk driving only if someone actually has an accident, it is a crime to drive drunk at all. Similarly, we should be doing the same for anyone who conceal or open carries a firearm for similar reasons; alcohol plays a role in incidents where guns are fired or brandished under the influence. More than that, we should require a drug test that shows us what kinds of drugs are in a person's system, reflecting either heavy use or very frequent / regular use, and debar them from access to guns - owning guns, carrying guns, working with guns - because they reflect a higher risk than people who do not impair their physical states, just as the drunk driver presents a risk such that we take away their licenses and in some cases, their vehicles. Drug users are already prohibited people from having guns; this is just quantifying and qualifying that prohibition before the equivalent of the drunk driving accident.
There is a direct correlation between problem gun use and drugs, a greater correlation than there is between drug testing and poverty that makes this a legitimate regulation of firearms by mandatory drug testing.
We should be decriminalizing drugs, at the very least marijuana, and get people out of our very expensive jails, using the savings to treat drug use and abuse as a public health medical issue. It works. It has worked very well in other countries.
What we do know is that people who are under the influence of drugs, including alcohol, make bad decisions, whether those chemicals are legal or illegal. There are kinds of behavior, kinds of action that should be prohibited to people who are impaired by an altered state from any kind of substance. Therefore, we have criminalized drunk driving, quite appropriately, and should continue to be very strict about doing so. We do not only criminalize drunk driving only if someone actually has an accident, it is a crime to drive drunk at all. Similarly, we should be doing the same for anyone who conceal or open carries a firearm for similar reasons; alcohol plays a role in incidents where guns are fired or brandished under the influence. More than that, we should require a drug test that shows us what kinds of drugs are in a person's system, reflecting either heavy use or very frequent / regular use, and debar them from access to guns - owning guns, carrying guns, working with guns - because they reflect a higher risk than people who do not impair their physical states, just as the drunk driver presents a risk such that we take away their licenses and in some cases, their vehicles. Drug users are already prohibited people from having guns; this is just quantifying and qualifying that prohibition before the equivalent of the drunk driving accident.
There is a direct correlation between problem gun use and drugs, a greater correlation than there is between drug testing and poverty that makes this a legitimate regulation of firearms by mandatory drug testing.
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