Thursday, June 17, 2010

let's drug test washington

orrin hatch, of utah, has decided the unemployed need to be drug tested. well, ORRIN, what is this going to really do?

drug testing will add an entire layer of expense and delay to unemployment compensation. either they will have to hire someone to conduct drug tests at the unemployment office or everyone will have to take their ass to a lab and get it done. THEN someone will have to be in charge of maintaining all of the drug testing records.

i have actually taken work drug tests... both ones given by an on-site nurse and ones that required going to a lab. these were pre-employment drug screens. in both cases, it took much more time than it seem like would take. when i went to the "lab" which was essentially a fairly busy doctors' office that squeezed in some pre-employment drug screens between doing everything else, they could only deal with one person at a time. there were perhaps five people that i saw who were getting drug tested. i was there about five hours.

people at the unemployment office are not lighting fast, for people who don't know this. today, the receptionist took about 10 minutes to tell me to go sit down and wait for a certain lady to be free to talk to me. now, i came and told her my name and that i was there for a specific interview. i also immediately filled out a slip of paper with my name, SSN, etc. like i said, they're not quick.

some lady was sitting in there waiting for someone and i had to wait another five minutes for her to FINALLY tell these people she didn't need to see anyone. she was just waiting on someone else. it was truly painful.

now, if there had been any cups to pee in i would still be there. we all would be.

i believe very little would be learned from the tests. first, not everyone in america is on drugs. so, a lot of us would pass the test. second, a lot of the people who ARE on drugs do not use them constantly, so they would pass the test just from having the sense to abstain in the days before the test. third, people who are heavier drugs users.. well, honestly, do these people generally work anywhere long enough to build up unemployment benefits? let's just say some do. from my experience living in the world, these people know how to get around pee tests. i don't know how well their methods work, but many of them aren't going to be caught. then there's the false positives who will have to be retested. i don't know that much about this, but it does happen and this will add expense and delay their benefits. which could possibly impact their lives very negatively given THEY HAVE NO MONEY. something i guess senators only know as an abstract concept.

so, given all of this the tests would accomplish little except costing money. there are people who will not do drugs, test or no test. then there are the people who know how to get aroung the test. testing them makes no difference because, generally they aren't going to change their behavior.

i suppose he's thinking some people may have been sober, upright citizens until they went on unemployent and then they became degenerate drug users. well, i suppose that can happen. just like senators can try to solicit blow jobs in bathrooms because they cannot figure out how to hook up with another guy without stumbling into a criminal investigation of some sort.

in theory, no one wants to give money to a bum. i get that. but, on the other hand, unemployment insurance does not last forever. unlike, say a senator's pension plan.

however, if we are concerned with drug addled people collecting unemployment should we not be concerned about our politicans? overall, they have shown themselves to be completely out of touch with reality, to have poor impulse control, and to have an exaggerated sense of self worth. additionally, their jobs affect millions of people, therefore it is reasonable for us to be concerned with their state of mind. so, we'll do the drug tests, then we will move on to the mental health profiles. then we'll just see.

people need to PAY ATTENTION to when their elected representative does something to say, screw up the economy. as much as some people scream and rant that the free market will fix everything... if no one has any money to buy then no profits will be made. it's just that simple. it's time to stop letting them get by with spewing out a bunch of words and throwing the attention onto some social issue like gay marriage.

yes, everyone wishes weddings were like some movie from 50 years ago. but, that is just a habit we have. how people who solicit sex in bathrooms can look down on people who actually seek to marry the person they love is beyond me. just like how someone who is paid a lot of money through tax dollars can begrudge people without an income of being able to take care of basic needs is beyond me.

orrin hatch is certainly not the only senator interested in drug testing. all of these bastards stink. if they are worried about money, how much do they think this testing will cost?

2 comments:

Allen the Ex-Patriot said...

The average US legislator is a millionaire making over $100 grand a year. That's what we pay them while they deny us basic human rights and benefits. That doesn't count their benefits, pension plans, travel and party expenses, and the pay they receive from their real employers, the lobbyists.

That's both parties, BTW- the Idiot Party and the Tyrant Party.

I'm tired of voting. I want blood shed.

shampoo said...

I am tired of everything.

I was reading an excerpt of john decamp's book and he says the judge advised him to read billy budd to understand WHY nothing could be done about the franklin coverup. "you won't like it, but you will understand it."

so, he says he learned the story is about how sometimes an innocent person must be sacrificed to preserve the system. but what happens, he wonders, when (and if) the system has become so corrupt that saving it is wrong?

bill colby also told him that it takes a long time, but eventually corrupt systems do fail. that maybe no one will ever know your part in making it happen, but sometimes you have to be patient and you have to be happy with that.

idk... idk why i'm even talking about that.