Why Losing Food Stamps Is Now Part of the War on Drugs

The nation’s never-ending war on drugs, that perpetual futility, has always fallen most heavily on poor people. This has usually been the result of discriminatory enforcement or, as with laws against crack and cocaine, an unfair penalty structure. The latest blow, however, has led to a direct attack on the poor.

Under a floor amendment, proposed by Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), to the 1996 welfare law and quickly adopted, anyone convicted of a felony for violating either a state or federal drug law after Aug. 22, 1996, can never get food stamps again. It makes no difference if the offender is sick, pregnant, a parent of a small child, in a treatment program, has been drug-free for years, is a first-time offender, works or is seeking work, a student or anything else. Nothing the offender can do will restore food-stamp eligibility, and administrators are allowed no discretion.

There is one escape hatch: A state may choose not to go along with the federal ban or modify it. So far, at least 27 states, including New York, Florida and Ohio, have opted out in whole or in part. California has chosen not to opt out.

For those caught by the law, the loss of food stamps can be little short of catastrophic. For example:

* Henry Turner is a 50-year-old disabled Indiana man. His sole income is Supplemental Security benefits, and he had been receiving food stamps since 1990. He suffers from arthritis, diabetes, gastritis and high blood pressure. In 1997, he was convicted for possessing marijuana and now cannot get food stamps. Treatment for his diabetes requires four fruits a day and other special foods that he now cannot afford. He survives on whatever he can get from friends and charities.

* A 40-year-old fisherman in Massachusetts with HIV became disabled after contracting pneumonia and has been unable to work. In 1997, he was convicted of a drug felony and thereafter denied food stamps. Now he cannot pay for the food he needs, which leaves him vulnerable to severe weight loss and viral infections, life-threatening conditions for people with HIV. Inadequate nutrition also reduces the efficacy of his medication.

There are many other such cases.

Losing food stamps is especially rough on women, particularly black and Latino. Children also suffer; in 1996, 89% of welfare families were headed by a single mother. Many poor women are ill-educated, have physical or mental disabilities and thus are forced to resort to selling drugs, one of the few ways for them to make ends meet. As a result, women constitute a disproportionately high number of drug offenders, and the number is increasing: 40% of today’s female prisoners are in for drug offenses.

The draconian food-stamp law also hurts those who try to help the poor. Hunger is a growing national problem, even for many who are working. Many jobs pay barely enough to cover rent. Food charities, which now number more than 30,000, are overwhelmed by demand even as their food supplies are shrinking. Food manufacturers, which formerly donated millions of tons of surplus food, have learned how to make use of imperfect products and accordingly have cut down on donations. This has also affected quality, as pantries and food kitchens are forced to buy cheaper foods to stretch shrinking budgets.

Residential drug-treatment centers are particularly hard hit. These centers usually require residents on food stamps to turn them over to the facilities, which then get the food. A large proportion of their clients fall under the food-stamp ban for, as the director of one center observed, “It’s rare to find anybody with a drug addiction who doesn’t have some type of felony conviction.” Residential centers in California already are having trouble in obtaining enough food because of the law and may have to curtail the number of people they treat.

The food-stamp cutoff may actually encourage crime. The person most affected is the occasional minor offender. The big timer doesn’t need food stamps, and repeat offenders are likely to get meals courtesy of the prison system, given the long-term sentences usually imposed on repeaters. Ex-drug offenders have a particularly hard time getting work, and since even drug addicts have to eat, without money or food stamps the temptation to steal or deal drugs will be strong. As Latosha McGee, convicted of a drug felony in California, said, “With no resources out there, it’s easy to go back to what we know.”

The irrational severity of the law has led people like Turner, the disabled Indiana man, to challenge the law’s constitutionality. Since the early 1970s, however, federal courts have effectively denied the poor any constitutional protection. To uphold a social-welfare law, the courts will accept any justification that is “reasonably conceivable.” It makes no difference how basic the need, how harsh the law or how dire the applicant’s situation. Just as long as a government lawyer can concoct some explanation that does not seem “patently arbitrary” to a judge, the law will be upheld, even if the explanation has no basis and is contradicted by evidence in the record.

It is thus no surprise that Turner lost his suit. The trial judge found it “reasonably conceivable” that the law was intended to curb runaway welfare spending, deter drug use or reduce illegal food stamp trafficking. The judge cited no evidence to support his conclusions, nor could he, for none was presented to Congress and there is nothing reliable in the record.

The food-stamp law is unlikely to produce substantial savings since more than half the states have opted out or modified it, and more are being urged to. Improved deterrence is just as improbable, for the loss of food stamps jeopardizes drug-treatment programs and is thus likely to increase, rather than decrease, drug abuse; an estimated 90% of imprisoned drug offenders who don’t get treatment will be behind bars again within three years. Food-stamp fraud will not be reduced substantially, either, for little of it is attributable to drug users.

In fact, there is little indication that any of these worthy purposes was on anyone’s mind during the few minutes the legislation was considered.

For millions of poor families, many with working members, food stamps are the last bulwark against hunger. In 1997, 24 million people obtained about $21 billion worth of food stamps. Meanwhile, the number of drug offenders in prison has shot up. In recent years, more than 300,000 people have been convicted of drug offenses each year. Though there is no way of knowing how many will fall under the lifetime food-stamp cutoff, one estimate is that the law could deny stamps to 200,000 people a year. In California, more than one-quarter of the large prison population is in for drug offenses; the number affected by the law is bound to be high, especially after post-1996 offenders are released.

Unhappily, once tough drug laws get on the books, it has proved almost impossible to get rid of them; the failure to substantially modify the harsh drug laws that former New York Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller pushed through in 1966, which have done nothing to reduce drug abuse in the state, are one example. But neither drug users nor the poor have any political clout. We will have to live with this latest assault on good sense and common decency for a long time to come.*