Earlier quoted context omitted.
The idea that people need to be told to buy food for their kid rather than a big screen TV is paternalistic, yes.
Sadly, some people absolutely need to be told to buy their kid a jacket vs. a large bag of cocaine.
Christian Parenti really sums it up well when he describes American views on poverty in his book, The Soft Cage:
"In a society that denies the true causes of poverty—low wages and structural unemployment—the poor necessarily show up as objects of mystery to be examined, measured, interrogated, and indexed, or as James C. Scott would put it, made “legible.” In a society that hides the real mechanics of exploitation and sees all social phenomena through the lens of individualism, it is assumed that the poor—their genetics, their habits, or their culture—must be the true cause of poverty."[1]
Specifically with respect to your point about drugs:
"Reports such as the National Survey of Drug Use and Health suggest drug abuse among welfare recipients is hardly widespread. Many states have tried drug testing for welfare recipients with practically nobody testing positive. In Arizona, for example, in 2012, after three years and 87,000 screenings, one person had failed a drug test. Utah's drug screening program spent $30,000 on testing and only 2.5% of recipients turned out positive for illicit drugs. Florida's program had the same results.
"In all cases, the testing -- which assumes all welfare recipients are druggies -- cost much more than the savings in welfare payments."[2]
We need to stop acting paternalistically toward the poor and, instead, treat them as people who are capable of making their own decisions.
[1] http://openlibrary.org/books/OL7593829M/The_Soft_Cage
[2] http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/30/opinion/granderson-michigan-we...