Sptsman, Your idea to fix the death penalty problem would work except it would cost more $$$ You would need to upgrade the prisons and hire more guards etc to keep them isolated. I'm all for it but as you pointed out you can't get people to agree to pay the $$$

As for welfare you want to break the cycle. STOP THE TRAIN! or just slow it down. I think that's exactly what this thread was orig about. A dis-incentive to do drugs and therefore make the recipients more responsible! No-one said anything about ended it out right. Drug testing of recipients is just one of the hundreds of breaks that need to be applied to stop the train. As you said it is embedded in our culture now!!! To fix it will require many years of "baby steps" And yes it would require more people and $$$ to run the program , but as more dis-incentives are applied to the program eventually the program will shrink. And by all means add some positive incentives to get off too! They will also work as breaks on the train