Employers can require employees to undergo drug tests, should unemployed people be required to undergo drug tests too?
Should the unemployed all be drug tested before being allowed to receive a benefit?
That offhand question from Finance Minister Bill English drew a round of applause from Federated Farmers delegates at the group’s AGM in Auckland on Thursday.
Having been asked why New Zealand was bringing in migrants for agricultural work while there were unemployed Kiwi youth on benefits, English responded by saying from his experience, many of the unemployed youth in his Clutha/Southland electorate could get jobs at the freezing works or in forestry if only they could pass a drugs test. “Which makes you wonder whether we should have a drugs test for putting people on [the] benefit,” he said.
Unemployed people on benefits are supposed to do all they can to be work-ready and find work.
Being drug-free would be a requirement for most if not all jobs therefore those on drugs wouldn’t be doing all they could to be work-ready.
Homepaddock 
“Being drug-free would be a requirement for most if not all jobs”
Really? What makes you say that?
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Sorry, but you\’ll need to define \”drug free\” before we can even begin a conversation.
For example, canabinoids can be detected days after the effects of the drug use have passed. So, why should any person, but let\’s stick with the employed for now, why should a person who goes home Friday after a hard week\’s graft, puffs a joint or 2 Friday night, be penalised because that is detectable 72 hours later? What happened to private lives, private time?
Further, English needs to do his homework. I know he is better at shooting from the lip than analysing data, but the US experience proves salutary. Drug testing beneficiaires is commonplace in parts of US and COSTS far EXCEED any benefits.
But while we\’re at it, let\’s drug test the pollis, including breath testing before they are permitted to vote in any evening/night time debates!
Want to fix unemployment? Stop being an idiot and start doing something about job creation, Bill.
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SK – given that Cannibis is an illegal substance I say that is grounds enough.
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SK – then you are at odds with the law.
If every person who committed an illegal act were to be sacked there would be no one left at work.
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If my observations of the leader of a party favored by many of the more mature have any substance then I wonder why you would wait for the evening/ night sessions as that person seems rather suspicious at Questions for oral anshwer at around 1430 hours.
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what about those taking prescribed drugs from doctors with a opiate base eg dhc and tramadol Due to work injuries will they have to worry about this proposal in relation to work place injury.
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James – the aim is to get people who aren’t work ready and possibly deliberately sabotaging their employment prospects. People taking prescription medicine shouldn’t be affected by this, they might not be able to do some jobs but that’s very different from choosing to take recreational drugs which rule them out of work.
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