THERE’S NOTHING wrong with government wanting to test welfare applicants for drug use. After all, as few Republicans now advocating legislation to this effect in Georgia seem to realize, it was authorized by President Bill Clinton’s 1996 Welfare Reform Act.

Fewer still are aware President Barack Obama just authorized the “next level” of such mandatory drug testing in order to get unemployment benefits although, more sensibly than suggestions arising in Georgia that this be done for everybody, limiting it only to those who lost their jobs due to a failed drug test or work in fields where drug testing is already mandatory (such as public safety).

The underlying notion, of course, is that taxpayer money should not be used to pay for an applicant’s habit. Who’s going to be against that? Of course, this begs the question: OK, if thus discovered what will be done to help such people given addiction is considered a medical condition?

***GEORGIA’S proposed House Bill 668 is an outstanding example of how not to go about this. Cash welfare support goes, of course, almost entirely to families ... meaning children are involved. Georgia proposes that a positive drug test cause a denial of benefits of up to three years which could also deny children food and shelter. The state plan to get around this: Turn custody over the another family member who will receive the benefits instead ... but who would also have to submit to a drug test. Granny will love that one.

Granny will also have to pay for it, as would mom/dad to begin with. The state will require the tests but not cover the costs ... another “unfunded mandate.” And, of course, the roughly 60 percent of adults that surveys show have never used drugs would also have to be tested along with the federally estimated 7.5 percent of Georgians who have used an illegal substance in the past month.

These tests are not cheap and, unlike so many seem to believe, those on welfare or jobless are not chronic cheats with a tin can full of greenbacks buried in the back yard.

***THE SIMPLEST test (urine) costs about $30 and up, depending upon what is being looked for. A full-array home-testing kit, that some parents impose on their teens, checks for 12 substances. Most only check for marijuana and maybe five others. Those are also fairly easy to “beat” by just staying “off” drugs for a week or less, as is common knowledge among probationers subjected to such tests. The more effective (hair analysis) test that can detect drug use within the past three months or so costs well over $100.

There’s also the problem of “positive” results that are actually false due to ingesting some normal foods. Supporters of the Georgia measure like to point to Florida, which recently started using this approach. In the first three months, that state saw a 48 percent drop in new welfare recipients and “saved” $1.8 million. Is this because 48 percent of down-and-out Floridians are druggies or because 48 percent of them decided to use what little money they have to feed their kids instead of drug-test providers?

***THERE’S ALSO the “whipping boy” misconception lurking within this that “the drug problem” resides only among the downtrodden and those wild, wild teen-agers. Florida reported only 2 percent of welfare applicants tested showed positive results. According to federal estimates, 70 percent of drug users hold full-time jobs.

Come to think of it, given where some of the welfare money is sometimes known to go, perhaps alcohol/tobacco testing should be added to this bill. And, of course, in one of those ha-ha-not-funny stories all too common involving the General Assembly, shortly after this measure was introduced one of the co-sponsors was arrested for drunken driving.

***IF THE INTENTIONS of this mandatory drug testing were in the interests of the common good, instead of simply budget cutting, it would be set up entirely differently. For starters, the state would pay for the tests in order to detect citizens and families that need help. It would not deny a family benefits but instead put the household budget under the direct control of a social worker. It would make sure the person who failed the test received treatment at state expense.

This approach would require more, not less, state funding; more, not fewer, social workers; more, not less, drug treatment at taxpayer expense.

Just incidentally, this could be paid for by the legalization and taxation of marijuana that increasing piles of statistical evidence show is not as “dangerous” nor addictive as alcohol has already been proven to be. The perils of marijuana, like the benefits defended by its users, are largely all in our heads.

***SO LONG as this is the road not being taken by legislative proposals such as HB 668, they deserve a combination of outrage and condemnation. Solving a bottom line, instead of a problem, is not the purpose of government.

Actually appearing to believe that refusing assistance to those in difficulty will fix anything proves only that Georgia’s legislators live not in the actual world but in a state of denial.