In total, just 1.6 percent of the 28,559 people who applied for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits in the first year of testing answered one of the three screening questions positively. Out of the 468 people who peed in a state-funded cup, 11.7 percent flunked the test. With 55 people testing positive for drugs out of an applicant pool of nearly 30,000, Tennessee’s testing system uncovered that a whopping 0.19 percent of those who applied for aid were drug users. Ultimately, 32 applicants were denied benefits for failing to complete the state’s mandatory drug rehab process for those who test positive. Tennessee officials say the year of testing cost $11,000, or $200 per failed drug test. But that only accounts for what the state paid to the outside vendor who conducted the actual tests, excluding staff hours that went into processing the new application materials and managing the logistics of testing those who gave an affirmative answer to a screening question.

Why drug-testing government assistance applicants is a giant waste of time and money, part the umpteenth. Tennessee implemented the type of drug-testing-for-welfare that passes constitutional muster, in which every welfare applicant is asked three questions about drug use and if they answer yes to any of the questions, they have to take a drug test. Alan Pyke lays out the results I'm honestly not sure which of these numbers is the most striking. Is it the low low percentage who have answered yes to having used illegal drugs, having lost or not gotten a job because of drug use, or having had to go to court over drug use in the past three months? Or is it the fact that of the people who answered yes to one of those questions, less than 12 percent didn't pass a drug test? Tennessee put in place a big new bureaucracy based on the stigmatizing and incorrect assumption that people in need of help are more likely to use drugs, and they found ... 55 people. Way to go, guys!

But these laws are really all about putting the hatred of and contempt for poor people into law, so on that front, mission accomplished.