CONTACT: Karen Smith or Maureen Sorbet

PHONE: (517) 373-7394

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DATE: September 6, 2000

Welfare drug testing ruling issued Family Independence Agency will appeal

LANSING - Citing a recent national study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, FIA director Douglas E. Howard announced today that the state will move aggressively forward to appeal the ruling of Federal District Judge Victoria A. Roberts in the Marchwinski vs. Howard welfare drug testing lawsuit.

The court has issued a preliminary injunction barring the agency from continuing its statutorily mandated testing of adult cash welfare applicants and recipients for illicit substances.

Michigan began a mandatory drug testing pilot in 5 sites last October. The pilot required that all adult applicants for cash assistance take a urine test using the same screening process used by state employees. If the welfare applicant refused, the case would not be opened. If the applicant took the test and tested positive, the case would be opened and the applicant referred to drug treatment. The state would have paid for treatment, child care and transportation. The pilot was halted on November 6, 1999 when the plaintiffs obtained a temporary restraining order against the state's pilot.

"More and more I hear my colleagues across the nation talk about the prevalence and severity of substance abuse in the remaining welfare caseload. In a recent study, they ranked the existence of substance dependency as high as 20 percent or more," said Howard. "When we ran our pilot briefly last fall, we found that a just over 10% of the applicants for cash assistance tested positive as opposed to the approximately 1% of the state employee job applicants who test positive each year. Any welfare applicants who tested positive would have been referred for treatment as a condition of eligibility."

Urine specimens were tested for marijuana, cocaine, amphetamines, opiates (morphine, codeine or heroine) and phencyclidine (PCP).

"A recent report also found that substance abuse was ranked third out of seven by national welfare administrators as a barrier to welfare reform, behind low skill levels and transportation, and ahead of child care availability, job scarcity, poor participant motivation or attitude, and domestic violence," Howard said.

"It is clear that something must be done to help these families break their dependency on substances and welfare, and I believe that Michigan has chosen the best path to address this national issue.