CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Researchers say it may be too early to come up with trends from the 12 states that now require drug testing from some residents receiving welfare benefits.
The West Virginia Legislature has talked about joining those states in recent years and a meeting Monday at the state capitol focused on some of the results from the other states.
The interim committee heard from Rochelle Finzel, group director with the National Conference of State Legislatures. She said the testing has only been around since 2011 when Florida was the first state to approve a program. She said most states who have the programs are in their first few years of operation.
“Some of them are still trying to do a random or suspicion-less test for all, a universal test and then there are others that are kind of following the lead of Missouri and some of the other states around specific language to make sure there is some sort of reason to believe or some cause,” Finzel said.
The states tie the tests to parents who get benefits for their children and so far there haven’t been many positive tests according to Finzel.
“Some of these (states) haven’t started until the last year or two so there’s not a lot of information out there, but what we see out there is generally there’s not a high rate of positive tests for parents,” Finzel said.
It’s been difficult for states to quantify how many welfare recipients are now choosing to forfeit their benefits all in order to keep from being drug tested.
Five states are offering treatment for those who test positive. Benefits are suspended anywhere from one month in some states to one year in others. Most of the positive tests have been for marijuana and some for prescription drugs.
Finzel said there’s also different ways to look at who pays for the program.
“In some cases the state will pay (for the test) regardless of the outcome and then others will say the applicant has to pay for the test —if they test negative the cost will be reimbursed to them–if they test positive the applicant will have to pay for the test,” Finzel said.
There’s also the rights issue. Finzel said Florida has suspended its program over constitutional issues.
The legislature health oversight interim committee plans to continue to collect information that could lead to a proposed bill for next year’s regular session.