UNITED STATES STUDENTS SCORE PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE DrugSense FOCUS Alert #323 - Tuesday, 7 February 2006 First it was a superb editorial in the New York Times Saturday "The High Cost of Public Information" http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n142/a05.html Today it was a feature article in USA TODAY "College Financial Aid Rules Loosened" http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n161/a05.html What's the fuss about? In 1998 Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) http://www.daregeneration.com was organized to oppose a little known provision of the Higher Education Act (HEA). College students with drug convictions were blocked from receiving federal financial aid. The drug provision was slipped into the 257-page HEA reauthorization bill without debate or a recorded vote. After organizing campus chapters across the country, and years of lobbying, a bill is on it's way to the President that sharply limits the drug conviction provision. Instead of applying to all past convictions, the law will, as the USA TODAY article says, change the standards: "But students convicted of a drug felony or misdemeanor in college will still be disqualified from receiving federal aid for at least one year." This is only a partial victory. Students who are convicted of other serious felonies or misdemeanors have always been eligible for federal financial aid. And students with the financial ability to attend college without federal financial aid are not punished by the HEA provisions. Letters to the Editor now can help move this issue forward. Your local newspapers are good targets. So are your local college or university newspapers. Newspaper contacts for LTEs may be found by using the MAP media page at http://www.mapinc.org/media.htm Use the "List by Area" dropdown to select a state. Look for Edu following the newspaper title to identify college papers. If possible, try working a link to SSDP into your letters. The shorter URL http://www.ssdp.org/ may find print more easily. For college papers, it never hurts to add a tie, if you have one, to the college after your signature block. Tell the paper if you are a former student, or if you have a friend or relative attending, for example. As the sidebar in the USA TODAY article says, many states or specific institutions of higher education also limit state and other financial aid based on drug convictions. Addressing these issues in your letters will be helpful as few are even aware of these additional limits on financial aid. Please see the Coalition for Higher Education Act Reform website http://www.raiseyourvoice.com/ for more information. Other LTE targets may be found at http://www.mapinc.org/hea.htm Thanks for your effort and support. It's not what others do -- It's what YOU do Additional suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism Center: http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides Or contact MAP Media Activism Facilitator Steve Heath for personal tips on how to write LTEs that get printed. You are welcome to join Steve and other LTE writing friends of MAP every Tuesday and Thursday evening at 9 p.m. Eastern, 8 p.m. Central, 7 p.m. Mountain and 6 p.m. Pacific time for a roundtable discussion of how to write LTEs that are printed. See: http://mapinc.org/resource/paltalk.htm for details on how you can participate in this important meeting of leading minds in reform. Discussion is conducted with live Voice (microphone and speakers all that is needed) and also via text messaging. The Paltalk software is free and easy to download and install. The password for these gatherings is: welcome-pal (all lower case) PLEASE SEND US COPIES OF YOUR LETTERS Please post a copy of your letter or report your action to the sent letter list () if you are subscribed, or by E-mailing a copy directly to if you are not subscribed. Your letter will then be forwarded to the list so others can learn from your efforts. Subscribing to the Sent LTE list () will help you to review other sent LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or approaches as well as keeping others aware of your important writing efforts. To subscribe to the Sent LTE mailing list see http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm#form Prepared by: Richard Lake, Sr. Editor,www.drugnews.org =.

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