A grow­ing num­ber of poor Amer­i­cans now face a new indig­ni­ty, thanks to a leg­isla­tive trend sweep­ing through state capi­tols: manda­to­ry drug tests for needy cit­i­zens. This year alone, at least 30 state leg­is­la­tures (includ­ing Louisiana, Mass­a­chu­setts and Illi­nois) have con­sid­ered bills that would require peo­ple to pass a drug test to become eli­gi­ble to receive wel­fare ben­e­fits. Some states – includ­ing New Mex­i­co, Maine and Ken­tucky – have pro­posed extend­ing the prac­tice to those col­lect­ing unem­ploy­ment, Med­ic­aid and food stamps.

At the fed­er­al lev­el, this year Sen. David Vit­ter (R‑La.) and Rep. Charles Bous­tany (R‑La.) intro­duced the Drug Free Fam­i­lies Act, which would require all 50 states to drug test all Tem­po­rary Assis­tance for Needy Fam­i­lies (TANF) pro­gram appli­cants and recip­i­ents. Their pro­posed leg­is­la­tion lan­guish­es in House and Sen­ate com­mit­tees, a fact that seems to have inspired states around the coun­try to take mat­ters into their own hands.

The state lead­ing the new trend is Flori­da. On July 1, the Depart­ment of Chil­dren and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices (DCF) began admin­is­ter­ing drug screen­ings to adults apply­ing for the TANF pro­gram, which pro­vides fam­i­lies with an aver­age of $240 a month for a life­time lim­it of 48 months. ​“While there are cer­tain­ly legit­i­mate needs for pub­lic assis­tance, it is unfair for Flori­da tax­pay­ers to sub­si­dize drug addic­tion,” Repub­li­can Gov. Rick Scott said on June 1 after sign­ing the law, which is expect­ed to affect about 4,000 appli­cants per month who will be required to foot the bill for the test.

While Florid­i­ans who pass are reim­bursed, appli­cants who fail are denied ben­e­fits for a year unless they enroll in a treat­ment pro­gram and don’t test pos­i­tive for six months (the state won’t pick up the tab for their recov­ery). Should they fail a sec­ond time, they will be inel­i­gi­ble for three years. All par­ents who test pos­i­tive for drugs will be auto­mat­i­cal­ly report­ed to the state’s abuse hot­line, like­ly fol­lowed by a vis­it from a DCF caseworker.

Also on July 1, Indi­ana became the first state to require drug tests for unem­ployed peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ing in state-spon­sored job train­ing pro­grams. Those who test pos­i­tive will not be eli­gi­ble for job train­ing for 90 days. A sec­ond fail­ure ren­ders a per­son inel­i­gi­ble for the pro­grams for one year. And under a new Mis­souri law signed by Demo­c­ra­t­ic Gov. Jay Nixon on July 12, if there is rea­son­able sus­pi­cion that a TANF recip­i­ent is using ille­gal drugs, a drug test can be ordered – but the law offers no guid­ance as to what con­sti­tutes rea­son­able suspicion.

A Feb­ru­ary report from the Wash­ing­ton D.C.-based Cen­ter for Law and Social Pol­i­cy (CLASP) found that pro­pos­als to drug-test TANF recip­i­ents are based on stereo­types, not evi­dence. ​“Peo­ple want to attribute their pover­ty to poor choic­es and not to our econ­o­my, even though we’re com­ing out of one of the worst eco­nom­ic reces­sions,” said CLASP’s Eliz­a­beth Low­er-Basch. Gov. Scott offered an exam­ple of this while on CNN in June, when he claimed that ​“stud­ies show that peo­ple that are on wel­fare are high­er users of drugs than peo­ple not on welfare.”

The facts don’t back him up. Accord­ing to a 2006 study in the Jour­nal of Pol­i­cy Prac­tice, sub­stance use is no more preva­lent among peo­ple on wel­fare than it is among the work­ing pop­u­la­tion. Nor is it a reli­able indi­ca­tor of an individual’s abil­i­ty to secure employ­ment, since 70 per­cent of all illic­it drug users between the ages of 18 and 49 are employed full-time.

Pri­or to Florida’s law, Michi­gan was the only state to ever force TANF appli­cants to sub­mit to drug tests. The pol­i­cy was struck down as uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in 2003 after the Amer­i­can Civ­il Lib­er­ties Union (ACLU) suc­cess­ful­ly argued that it vio­lates the Fourth Amendment’s pro­tec­tion against unrea­son­able search­es. ACLU Flori­da Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Direc­tor Derek New­ton hint­ed that the orga­ni­za­tion planned to chal­lenge the law, but he could not com­ment on pos­si­ble lit­i­ga­tion until it was filed. He did claim that the new law is clear­ly uncon­sti­tu­tion­al because ​“with­out hav­ing indi­vid­u­al­ized sus­pi­cion … the gov­ern­ment can­not drug test, espe­cial­ly wide groups of peo­ple, based on some oth­er cri­te­ria,” like their eco­nom­ic status.

The New Orleans-based Women’s Health & Jus­tice Ini­tia­tive, which advo­cates for low-income and work­ing class women of col­or, had this to say in a July state­ment: ​“The tar­get­ing of wel­fare recip­i­ents … is noth­ing more than the con­tin­u­al use of stereo­types and myths to crim­i­nal­ize the lives of poor women and their fam­i­lies through inva­sive and uncon­sti­tu­tion­al reg­u­la­to­ry poli­cies of eco­nom­ic violence.”