Huffington Post is reporting current Republican Tea Party (GOTP) presidential darling Newton “Stay Puffed” Gingrich thinks the federal government should make it more expensive to be a drug user.

“It could be through testing before you get any kind of federal aid,” Gingrich told Yahoo’s Chris Moody in an interview on Saturday. “Unemployment compensation, food stamps, you name it.”

Newton’s suggestion is popular amongst the uber-conservatives, and many GOTP Governors and legislators have been proposing drug testing the poor and jobless as a way for the government to save money on programs like welfare and unemployment insurance; the idea being of course that the vast majority of those receiving these benefits are drug addicted welfare queens driving around in their Cadillacs; only the sunshine state of Florida actually enacted a new requirement, but it was promptly locked by a federal court.

“It has always struck me that if you’re serious about trying to stop drug use, then you need to find a way to have a fairly easy approach to it and you need to find a way to be pretty aggressive about insisting — I don’t think actually locking up users is a very good thing,” Newton reportedly said. “I think finding ways to sanction them and to give them medical help and to get them to detox is a more logical long-term policy.”

For three months – July to October – Florida required welfare applicants to submit to mandatory urine testing to prove they weren’t using drugs. The policy was stopped with an injunction from a federal judge, finding the 35-year-old single father who claimed the test violated his constitutional rights would be substantially likely to win his case. Courts also found the same policy unconstitutional when Michigan tried it in 1999.

Newton is pandering to the far-right yet again in an effort to win their votes in the primaries; problem is if he wins the nomination he’s going to have to run back to the center to have any hope of winning and that doesn’t seem very likely after pledging his political soul to the uber-conservative tea party affiliates; here’s a better idea for the GOTP front runner, why not propose mandatory drug testing for radio talk show hosts?