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Old 04-02-2009, 07:20 AM   #10 (permalink)
ngdawg
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tisonlyi View Post
When the heinous crime of poppy seed consumption can and does throw a positive for opiates... yeah, and that'll be wonderful. (There have been people ARRESTED AND JAILED flying into or through Dubai for the possession, even in the tread of their shoes, of poppy seeds... Gotta love absolutism)

Whenever there's a new test or new punishment, especially for a 'crime' which really shouldn't be by any objective measure, consider the consequences for the false positives, the administrative mixups, the new ways that will be inventedto game the system, etc, etc, etc...

Should they be tested for eating too much, smoking, not exercising enough, etc, etc also?

Who pays for all these tests? Who apply the tests? (Doctors, nurses or someone much less expensive but with zero clinical or scientific training?) Who manages this? Is there a right of appeal? Does this go under the jurisdiction of a capricious bureaucrat?

14,000 people to be tested in Kansas... say it costs, end-to-end at a very reasonable rate, $200 to test these people.

That's $2.8m for each testing cycle.

Monthly, quarterly, yearly? How are you going to administer this?

It's unreliable. It's draconian. It's expensive. It's easily gamed. It's capricious.

This, frankly, is the very definition of a bad idea.

My cynical mind tells me that somewhere there are a raft of lawmakers on the take from some testing company...

(1st April?)

This is a common misconception that has been disproved several times, including on MythBusters. The amount of poppy seeded food needed to produce a false positive is beyond what normal people would consume; even devouring an entire poppy seed loaf didn't get a positive test result. Wikipedia contributions are not always the last word.

I think it's about time someone did this. Being on the government dole is no excuse, nor should it be support, for those who choose to spend it on getting stoned. But, like "Workfare", it'll probably end up dead in the water. Why should my tax dollars pay for one's self-destructive behavior? They already pay for stupid shit.
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