Pubdate: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 Source: Rice Thresher (TX Edu) Copyright: 2001 Rice Thresher Contact: http://www.rice.edu/projects/thresher/index.html Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1148 Author: Vikki Hutto SEVERITY OF HEA DRUG POLICY MAKES LITTLE SENSE I have a friend from high school named Todd who now attends the University of Texas. Next year he was supposed to graduate with a degree in computer science, but instead he will not be attending school in the fall. Like millions of other students across America, Todd depends on federal financial aid in order to attend college. However, next year he will not receive any help from the government. Why? Because a few weeks ago he was arrested for possession of two marijuana cigarette butts. A provision of the Higher Education Act of 1998 mandates that students convicted of any drug-related offense be denied eligibility for financial aid for periods ranging from one year to indefinite. It is difficult to stomach the fact that in this advanced society we would deny an education to anyone who desires one. The federal government's involvement in education should be focused on making it easier rather than making it more difficult for citizens to acquire an education. By targeting both minorities and lower income people, this law is discriminatory in its very nature. Denying financial aid hurts only those students who need the aid, namely, children of working-class families. Citizens of modest means are more likely to be arrested for minor drug offenses, less likely to be effectively represented by legal counsel and more likely to be dependent upon financial aid than students from wealthier families. If denied a college education, many poor children find that their only other path toward financial prosperity and upward mobility is through crime and black market activities such as selling drugs. The Health Education Authority drug provision only serves to perpetuate this cycle and further marginalize underclasses and minorities. The provision will have a racially discriminatory effect because drug law enforcement is disproportionately focused on black and Latino communities. For instance, African Americans make up 13 percent of the U.S. population and an estimated 13 percent of drug users, but represent 55 percent of drug convictions and more than 70 percent of incarcerations for drug-related offenses (U.S. Department of Justice, 1998). Without a college education, minorities are forced to work at minimum wage jobs while the upper classes reap the benefits of their cheap labor. The HEA drug provision ensures a constant supply of young minorities who will work for less than poverty-level wages. This is simply a masked form of slavery. People who use drugs medicinally or recre-ationally, and responsibly, do not have a drug problem. They do not need to be punished if they are not hurting anyone, and punishing them has not solved our nation's drug problems. I am a product of the D.A.R.E. generation, growing up under our nation's harshest drug laws, and I was not protected from drugs. People who abuse drugs have a medical condition and need to be treated medically. Addiction is a disease. We need to treat these people and help them recover their lives, not shut the doors of opportunity on them when they are at a low point. Furthermore, it is wrong to discriminate only against users of certain drugs. Aspirin, Ritalin, Prozac, nicotine, Viagra, diet pills, Depo-provera, Rogaine, ibuprofen, acetaminophen, codeine, Valium, Drama-mine: Americans use drugs. Have you ever used caffeine to help you stay up so you could work on a paper or lab report? Have you ever been prescribed painkillers when you had dental surgery and then taken the leftovers later when you had a headache? Certainly no one put you in prison for it or took away your financial aid. Which is worse, smoking marijuana to help you sleep or taking sleeping pills? And what about alcohol and tobacco? Alcohol is a far more addictive and destructive drug than cannabis. Marijuana is perfectly harmless, but the costs versus the benefits of ineffective enforcement programs need to be weighed. Cannabis consumers pay taxes and are not second-class citizens. Adults have the legal right to consume alcohol, tobacco and other social drugs, but they are criminalized for choosing cannabis, a natural herb. No other class of offense, including violent offenses, predatory offenses or alcohol-related offenses, carries with it the automatic denial of federal financial aid eligibility. When arbitrary laws target and deprive people of their freedom, their jobs, their homes, their children, driver's licenses, educational benefits, opportunities, and other human and civil rights, that is discrimination. When propaganda campaigns attack their character and reputation, that is bigotry. Substance abuse is a serious national problem, but closing the doors of our colleges and universities - thereby making it more difficult for those most at-risk to succeed - is not a policy fit for an advanced society such as ours. Vikki Hutto is a Will Rice College sophomore and a founding member of the Rice chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy.