this idea of having to take a drug test is part of the fourth amendment to the constitution an illegal search and seizure. that s correct. the constitution only allows reasonable seizures. and if a search is done without suspicion and is blanket like the law in this case required, that s an unreasonable search. that s why it s a violation of the fourth amendment. dara, one of the things that scott likes to claim is the drug use among welfare recipients is much higher. but if you take a look at the statistics, that actually hasn t really borne itself out. 2.6% of florida welfare recipients failed drug tests. 9.2% in population aged 12 and older. point being by the number, and we haven t seen sort of his data or his analysis, they don t really the record does not seem to match the reality. there doesn t seem to be any
cnn, the high rate of drug use among welfare recipients. studies show people on welfare are using drugs much higher than the population. yeah, right. we invited the governor, who s promising to appeal the judge s decision, to join us today and he sent the following statement that says in part, we should have a zero-tolerance policy for illegal drug use in families, especially those families who struggle to make ends meet and need welfare assistance to provide for their children. we also asked his office for those studies because when you actually look at the numbers in florida, 2.6% of those tested while the law was in effect failed. usually it was for marijuana. that is much lower than the national average. so joining me now to discuss, daryl hahn from florida and maria cairo, associate director for the afl-cio of florida representing the plaintiff in this case. thanks to you both. thank you, karen. i want to start with you,
data that indicates that people who receive welfare or cash benefits use drugs at a higher rate than the rest of the general population. it seems as though this is really more of a political issue. the governor campaigned on it, as you said, when he was running for governor in 2010, and it polls really well among republicans shortly after the lawsuit was filed in 2011, a quinnipiac university poll of floridians showed that more than 70% of floridians supported testing welfare recipients, and that was 90% of republicans favored it. and one of governor scott s aides at the time told me when the first ruling came down barring, you know the preliminary injunction came down, told me they wanted to take this to the supreme court, that they didn t care, really,
a drug test before getting their benefits. that is the proposal in several states. among the supporters, texas republican governor rick perry. one g.o.p. state senator says, quoting here, we don t want to provide funds for people who are using controlled substances so they can use more controlled substances. democratic opponents say that drug abuse among unemployed is not a widespread program and then there is the issue of cost. gerri, how can this affect the state s bottom line? you would think it would be a ton of dough. florida experienced $48,000 in saving by testing welfare recipients but they spent $118,000 testing these people. state law requires florida to reimburse people who get these tests if they prove negative. only 3% of these people test positive for drugs. then there is utah. they are spending $20,000 to