With Florida's 2011 law requiring welfare recipients to take drug tests playing out in the courts, lawmakers explored other ways to prevent people who use drugs from getting state money.

While these new efforts aren't directly related to drug-testing welfare recipients, we thought they were worth noting for the record.

Florida law already prevents people convicted of drug trafficking from receiving food stamps and temporary cash assistance from the state.

Rep. Jimmie Smith, R-Lecanto, and Sen. Steve Oelrich, R-Alachua, wanted to expand the pool of denied applicants to people convicted of felony drug possession -- unless they complete treatment.

Their proposal passed the House by a vote of 80-31 on March 1. It did not fare so well in the Senate, where it was not brought up for a floor vote despite passing a couple committees.

One drug-testing measure did make it to the governor's desk, with another legal challenge likely to follow. Scott signed into law on March 19, 2012, a requirement that state agencies randomly test up to 10 percent of their workers once every three months.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida sued Scott last year over his executive order to require random drug-testing of state employees, arguing it's an unwarranted search and seizure by government. The group has hinted it may do the same with the new law.

"It's amazing that the Governor and the Legislature would move ahead with a law that so clearly violates the Constitutional protections against invasive government searches without suspicion – especially while a legal challenge on precisely the same issue is pending in the federal court,” said ACLU of Florida executive director Howard Simon in a news release.

We offer this update acknowledging neither spin-off was what Scott promised on the campaign trail. His promise to drug-test welfare recipients is in the courts, so we're keeping our rating at In the Works.