PHOENIX - Drug testing is already happening here in Arizona for at least one government assistance program.
A post floating around the internet is claiming the state has spent millions of dollars testing thousands of people and that only one person has failed.
“Fun Fact,” the image says. “Arizona has spent $3,600,000 drug testing 87,000 welfare recipients. Want to know how many people failed? One. They spent $3,600,000 to catch one guy.”
The numbers presented are startling and can even anger you a bit.
Is Arizona really wasting that much time and money on drug tests that have only caught one person?
12 News talked to the State Department of Economic Security to get some answers.
The department said it does drug test, but specifically for the temporary assistance for needy families program.
And the department only does this if they have a reasonable cause.
Between 2009 and 2016, 49 people were flagged to be drug tested; 23 eventually took those tests.
Six people failed, and of those, three actually lost their benefits. The other three were found to be on prescription medications.
Each test cost $25.43, which comes out to a grand total of $585 dollars spent by Arizona – nowhere near the $3.6 million in the post.
So we’ve verified that Arizona didn’t waste millions to catch one guy, and they actually caught more than one.