To the Editor:

Government spending on welfare alone is $131.9 billion a year. The purpose of government aid programs is to encourage enrollees to better their lives, not to support their drug addiction.

Some people abuse the system, so drug tests should be required to receive any government benefits.

One downside is that it stereotypes people who receive benefits as drug addicts. Michael Spencer, author of "Journal of Family Social Work," stated, "... Delva and colleagues found that occurrence of any illicit drug use among welfare recipients to be 50-percent higher than among nonwelfare recipients."

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