Wisconsin will start drug testing welfare recipients starting Monday. Governor Scott Walker signed off on the rule, as-written by the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families. The rule requires testing able-bodied adults seeking certain benefits.
Walker issued a statement today saying, “Employers across the state frequently tell me they have good-paying jobs available in high-demand fields, but need their workers to be drug-free. These important entitlement reforms will help more people find family-supporting jobs, moving them from government dependence to true independence.”
DCF’s newly-approved rule is the next step in the process as they develop and implement their drug screening and testing for certain able-bodied adults seeking benefits and/or training through Transform Milwaukee, Transitional Jobs, and noncustodial parents in the W-2 program. Under the plan, individuals who test positive for a controlled substance without a prescription would be eligible for a drug treatment plan.
The FDA recently voted in favor of pushing a new formulation of oxycodone hydrochloride for approval. The new OxyContin formula is more difficult to crush or dissolve which will hopefully make it harder to be used as a drug of abuse . The FDA recommended that Purdue Pharma's application for a new, resin-coated formulation should replace the original version, which has been on the market since 1996. Randall Flick, MD, an anesthesiologist at the Mayo Clinic who voted to recommend approval of the drug said, "Clearly the old formulation is worse than the new, although I think the difference is relatively small," Flick concluded, "Hardcore abusers are likely to devise new ways to break down the harder tablet or figure out which solvents will dissolve it fastest, within 'day or weeks' of the product's release on the market."