Pubdate: Sat, 05 Jan 2002 Source: Charleston Daily Mail (WV) Copyright: 2002 Charleston Daily Mail Contact: http://www.dailymail.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/76 Authors: Myron Von Hollingsworth, Keith Sanders Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hea.htm (Higher Education Act) Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n005/a07.html LISTEN TO WHAT JELLO BIAFRA SAYS I respond to the Daily Mail's Jan. 1 editorial, "College: Those who sell drugs should not get federal aid." The Drug Enforcement Agency criticizes ethnic cleansing around the world from Hitler to Milosevic but practices it daily with its drug war. In the October 1999 edition of High Times, Jello Biafra says that DEAland's drug war is ethnic cleansing American style. If your readers doubt this, they should ask themselves why white drug users well outnumber non-white drug users but a majority of those dying, doing time, losing voting rights and losing college aid for non-violent drug crimes are people of color. African-Americans make up 12 percent of the population but it is estimated that they make up 38 percent of those arrested for drug offenses and 58 percent of those convicted of drug offenses. It seems the government has no problem giving college aid to convicted rapists and murderers but not to a convicted possessor of one joint. Now, to use a favorite ploy of the paranoid, propaganda-peddling prohibitionists: What kind of message are we sending to the children? Maybe the corrupt politicians and media are required to adhere to the party line of prohibition because law enforcement, customs, the prison and military industrial complex, the drug testing industry, the "drug treatment" industry, the INS, the CIA, the FBI, the DEA, the politicians themselves et al can't live without the budget justification, not to mention the invisible profits, bribery, corruption and forfeiture benefits that prohibition affords them. The drug war also promotes, justifies and perpetuates racist enforcement policies and is diminishing many freedoms and liberties that are supposed to be inalienable according to the constitution and bill of rights. Myron Von Hollingsworth Fort Worth, Texas - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FORMER DRUG USERS NEED AID FOR COLLEGE I must take issue with your Jan. 1 editorial concerning the 1998 Higher Education Act. Contrary to your claim, the law's ban on federal student aid was in no way targeted solely at dealers; it clearly applies to anyone convicted of any drug-related offense, including simple possession. Considering that we arrest some 650,000 Americans each year just for simple possession of marijuana, the distinction is a crucial one. Note that convicted thieves, murderers, and rapists face no ban on student aid - - only drug offenders are targeted. Users and abusers of more dangerous legal drugs, like alcohol and tobacco, are also exempted from the ban. The Higher Education Act is so badly flawed that even Rep. Mark Souder, R- Ind., outspoken drug warrior and author of the law, is fighting hard to change it. The ban merely discriminates against poorer students who need the aid most. After all, upper-class drug users needn't worry about losing financial aid -- and it denies them an important opportunity to put their lives back together after a run-in with America's overzealous morality police. Keith Sanders Oakland, Calif. - --- MAP posted-by: Josh