{"id":7409,"date":"2011-06-06T16:36:32","date_gmt":"2011-06-06T20:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=7409"},"modified":"2011-06-06T16:03:47","modified_gmt":"2011-06-06T20:03:47","slug":"florida-gov-rick-scott-signs-law-requiring-welfare-recipients-to-take-drug-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=7409","title":{"rendered":"Florida Gov. Rick Scott Signs Law Requiring Welfare Recipients To Take Drug Test"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TALLAHASSEE &#8212; Republican <strong>Gov. Rick Scott<\/strong> signed a bill last Tuesday that requires benefit recipients to undergo drug testing.<\/p>\n<p>Applicants for the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program who test positive for illicit substances won&#8217;t be eligible for the funds for a year, or until they undergo treatment.<\/p>\n<p>Those who fail a second time would be banned from receiving the funds for three years.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;While there are certainly legitimate needs for public assistance, it is unfair for Florida taxpayers to subsidize drug addiction,&#8221; <strong>Scott <\/strong>said. &#8220;This new law will encourage personal accountability and will help to prevent the misuse of tax dollars.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If welfare candidates pass the drug screening, they&#8217;ll be reimbursed for the test.<\/p>\n<p>The legislation instantly came under a barrage of criticism from the American Civil Liberties Union and several of the Sunshine State&#8217;s Democrats. They argued the bill is an invasion of privacy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The wasteful program created by this law subjects Floridians who are impacted by the economic downturn, as well as their families, to a humiliating search of their urine and body fluids without cause or even suspicion of drug abuse,&#8221; said <strong>Howard Simon<\/strong>, executive director of the ACLU of Florida.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TALLAHASSEE &#8212; Republican Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill last Tuesday that requires benefit recipients to undergo drug testing. Applicants for the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program who test positive for illicit substances won&#8217;t be eligible for the funds for a year, or until they undergo treatment. Those who fail a second time [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7409\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}