Marijuana Policy Project

Title: 

Louisiana legislators want poor people to pee in a cup

Message: 

Louisiana’s legislature is once again seeking new ways to make poverty even more humiliating by forcing welfare recipients to submit to drug testing. Sponsored by Rep. Sherman Mack (R-95), HB 380 would require random drug testing of at least 20% of recipients of cash assistance in the Family Independence Temporary Assistance Program. The bill would not require testing of government contractors, executives of corporations who receive multi-million dollar tax abatements, or other recipients of taxpayer dollars who aren’t poor.

In 2011, the legislature almost passed HB 7, a similar welfare discrimination bill. HB 7 passed the House and a Senate committee, but never received a Senate vote.

Please ask your legislators to oppose this wasteful, discriminatory legislation.

I could tell you about how similar programs have been ruled unconstitutional in other states, don’t actually save money, and unfairly stigmatize the poor, but I’ll let the Daily Show do it better (and funnier) than I could:

Please take just a minute to tell your legislators that you don’t approve of wasting money by picking on the poor.