We understand the frustration people sometimes express toward the state’s Electronic Benefits System that allows welfare recipients to buy cigarettes or beer using a state-issued, debit-type card.

You’re standing in line behind somebody at a convenience store and they purchase a pack of cigarettes using the same EBT card that is used to distribute food stamps. They use the same card, but EBT and food stamps are not the same thing.

Food stamps are a federal benefit that come with restrictions about what they can be used for. But the state also uses the EBT card to distribute cash for about 14,000 people in the state. The card replaced the old system of welfare checks that used to be mailed out to the state’s neediest residents. It’s money that people can use to pay rent, buy diapers and purchase other essentials.

But to the frustration of many, the money on the cards can also be used to buy cigarettes or beer – which a lot of people don’t see as a necessity.

Jackie Whiton, in fact, was frustrated enough in June 2012 that she refused to sell cigarettes to a customer who tried to purchase them with an EBT card at the Peterborough convenience store where Whiton worked as a clerk.

She was promptly fired.

It’s a system that has not escaped the notice of the state’s lawmakers, who are considering legislation to restrict how the cash on the EBT card can be used.

“These are being spent on things that they weren’t intended to, and taxpayers are fed up about it,” Rep. Frank Sapareto, R- Derry, said at a hearing recently.

As right as he may be, restricting what can be done with the cash benefit may not be an easy fix. Terry Smith, the director of the state’s Division of Family Assistance, said the EBT card is “invisible” to retailers, who can’t tell when a customer buys cigarettes whether the cash is coming off a debit card or an EBT card, unless they happen to notice.

Smith said restricting what welfare recipients can do with the cash on their cards is an issue other states are grappling with, too.

Some, like Rep. Timothy Horgan, D-Durham, believe there should be no such restrictions, and that limiting the purchase discriminates against the poor.

“They are free to make their own choices about spending their cash, just like everyone else,” Horgan said during a committee hearing recently.

Except it’s not “their” cash – or at least it wasn’t before the government took it from taxpayers who had earned it.

We don’t begrudge help to people who need it, especially children – and 91 percent of those who receive the cash benefit in the state are single mothers, Smith said – but we also don’t think it’s the taxpayers’ job to support people’s bad habits or addictions.

The state could pass a law forbidding store clerks from selling cigarettes to people paying with EBT cards, but we think that puts an undue burden on retailers.

Even if such a law passed, welfare recipients could get around it by going to an ATM machine, withdrawing cash, and going to the nearest convenience store.

Smith said the idea of a “cashless system” is out there, as is a bill that would require his department to review a person’s cash receipts every six months, which is probably where the state would reach the point of diminishing return, given how labor intensive that would be.

It all has a sort of “we can put a man on the moon” feel to it with regard to our technology, but there is one idea that stands out above the rest, and would address several issues at once.

Strengthening the economy to create more jobs and help people get off welfare could render much of the debate moot.

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