Americans Want Congress Members Subjected to Drug Tests

[frigidmagi]

House Hufflepuff's favorite's news source is...

While most Americans like the idea of drug testing for welfare recipients, they LOVE the idea of drug testing for members of Congress.

According to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll, 64 percent of Americans favor requiring welfare recipients to submit to random drug testing -- a measure pushed by Republican lawmakers in recent years -- while 18 percent oppose it. But an even stronger majority said they're in favor of random drug testing for members of Congress, by a 78 percent to 7 percent margin. Sixty-two percent said they "strongly" favor drug testing for congressional lawmakers, compared to only 51 percent who said the same of welfare recipients.

The House of Representatives passed legislation this year that would allow states to require food stamp recipients to pee in cups to prove they're not on drugs. In 2012, Republicans pushed for drug testing of people seeking unemployment insurance benefits when they lose their jobs. At the state level, GOP lawmakers across the country have sought drug testing for an array of safety net programs. (Politicians sometimes refer to means-tested government benefits in general as "welfare," although the term is more commonly a nickname for the relatively small Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.)

Democrats have frequently suggested that if drug tests are good for people getting a hand from the government, then they're good for people running the government, too. Republicans usually don't go along with that idea -- the Kansas state legislature is one recent exception -- but voters heartily approve.

While drug testing for both welfare recipients and lawmakers received support across party lines in the new poll, the congressional proposal was the one more likely to bring Americans together. Eighty-six percent of Republicans, 77 percent of Democrats and 75 percent of independents said they want drug testing for members of Congress.

Republicans felt especially strongly about drug testing of welfare recipients, with 87 percent favoring it and only 9 percent opposed. Among Democrats, 50 percent favored and 28 percent opposed drug testing of welfare recipients, while independents were in favor by a 64 percent to 16 percent margin.

If a member of Congress is caught using illegal drugs, as Rep. Trey Radel (R-Fla.) was in late October, Americans expressed little inclination to show mercy. Sixty-six percent said that a member of Congress convicted of possessing a small amount of cocaine should be forced to resign, while only 14 percent favored allowing the convicted member to serve out the remainder of his or her term.

Americans consider drug testing to be a no-brainer under a variety of circumstances, according to the survey. Seventy-two percent said they support random drug testing for members of the military, and 87 percent supported it for airline pilots. Seventy-one percent said they support random drug testing for professional athletes.

The HuffPost/YouGov poll was conducted Nov. 25-27 among 1,000 U.S. adults using a sample selected from YouGov's opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population. Factors considered include age, race, gender, education, employment, income, marital status, number of children, voter registration, time and location of Internet access, interest in politics, religion and church attendance.

This is some good old fashioned leadership by example. You want everyone else to pee in a cup? That's fine bro, long as you do it to. I'm good with this. I like this. I support this.

[B4UTRUST]

I'm all for drug testing government officials and elected members. However, I'm also scared at what the results will show us. Namely I'm scared that it will reveal that there is in fact not rampant drug abuse inside of Congress and that they really are just that brain damaged.

[Lys]

I've been on more drugs than some drugs addicts, but only two of them were not legally prescribed and acquired at a pharmacy. Of those two, one was only a misdemeanour in the relevant jurisdiction and the other isn't a controlled substance. So I'll tell you that if Congress is on drugs? They probably have a prescription. It's gotten harder over the last few years to get opioids, but hydrocodone cut with acetaminophen is still the #1 most prescribed drug in the United States. Far as I can tell any middle-class middle-aged white male can get vicodin or oxicontin pretty much at will, whether they need it or not. Congress is chock full of that particular demographic.

Access to various stimulants is also relatively easy. I got a dextroamphetamine prescription by just telling a psychiatrist I had trouble focusing and asking if the go pills the USAF gives its pilots might help. He was like, "Do you have ADHD?" and told him "Not as far I know, and nobody's raised the possibility before." He just shrugged and said, "Eh, you might have it, I'll write you a script." Then he warned me that they are very addictive and to not take them on weekends. Fine advice, except that I didn't even get to the weekend because my body developed total tolerance after three days.

Note: All the prescriptions I've obtained have been to address genuine problems. I'm just trying to illustrate it wouldn't have been hard to get them if I didn't have those problems.

[frigidmagi]

And yet we have Congressmen being busted for cocaine. Besides in my case it's what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Congress seems to like insisting everyone else in the country be subjected to drug test, well in that case they should lead by example and experience just a touch of the inconvenience themselves.

As an aside, I get some dark amusement from Kentucky being the only state to follow through on this. Why? Weed and Meth might just be bigger industries in that state then any of the legal ones. To the point that a few years ago I was reading that National Guardsmen were needed to make drug raids as the police would refuse to and the Guardsmen would go through great pains to conceal their identities when they did so.

[Lys]

Oh, you can definitely count me in favour of making Congress subject to drug tests. A lot of government employees already are and all Congressmen are government employees, much as they try to distance themselves from that fact. I just find it very likely that whatever amount of drug abuse is going on in Congress, most of it occurs with a veneer of legality. We had one Congressman busted for cocaine use, but I think he's the exception. Though I grant that given how much of Congress is in bed with Wall Street, it may turn out that doing coke with their investment banker buddies isn't that rare amongst our illustrious legislators.

It sounds like Kentucky is having the same problem Mexico has had for ages. The local police refuse to do anything against the drug manufacturers and traffickers, both because of the threat of retaliation against themselves and their families, and the simple fact that their area's economy depends on it. The Mexicans have been forced to use special military and federal police units, the membership of those units is kept a closely guarded secret. When conducting raids ever single member of one of these units will invariably be covered head to toe in tactical gear to make themselves as unrecognisable as possible.