Following the time-honored tradition of lawmakers (“do unto others as you would not do unto yourself”), the Florida legislature adopted the first-in-the-nation law that allows state workers to be tested for drug use.

Legislators are exempt.

Promoted by Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who signed the bill into law on Monday, the legislation allows (but doesn’t require) state agencies to randomly test up to 10% of their public employees for illegal drugs, prescription drugs, and alcohol every three months. It follows another Florida edict requiring welfare recipients to be screened for substance abuse.

The new law has not produced much outcry from the general public. Civil libertarians, however, object to the drug-testing mandate.

“People are always in favor of locking up miscreants, and, despite our constitutional legal traditions, there’s always a lot to be reaped from the argument that if you haven’t done anything wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about,” Colin Gordon, a labor historian at the University of Iowa, told the Christian Science Monitor.

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The law, which will go into effect July 1, does not include funding for the drug testing, meaning that any agency that wants to pursue the testing will have to cut its budget somewhere else.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

To Learn More:

Florida Orders Applicants for Federal Needy Families Program to be Drug Tested…and Pay for It (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)