The Daily Show went after Florida's highly debated welfare drug testing law in a Thursday night segment featuring state Rep. Scott Plakon (R-Longwood) and Luis Lebron, a 35-year-old Navy veteran who successfully sued the state over the law.
Aasif Mandvi, a Daily Show correspondent, sat down with Plakon and Lebron to discuss the assumptions the law makes about people on welfare, the Florida Independent reports.
"I wouldn't say that poor people love drugs, Aasif, but if we are giving you money, we're asking you to take this test," Plakon said, defending the law after Mandvi joked that "we know how much poor people love drugs."
Lebron continued to dismiss the law and again refused to take a drug test after Mandvi presented him with a cup to pee in.
"It's casting a cloud over a population of people with no factual evidence," Lebron said.
The Daily Show also targeted the law in December, when Florida Governor Rick Scott made an appearance to discuss his budget proposal. Mandvi asked Scott to pee in a cup, to which the governor replied, "You don't get to run this."
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The law has received opposition for some time now. In September 2011 the ACLU challenged the legislation, and in October 2011 a judge halted the law, saying it may violate the Constitution's ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.
