Pubdate: Fri, 30 Jan 2004
Source: Providence Phoenix (RI)
Copyright: 2004 The Phoenix Media/Communications Group
Contact:  http://www.providencephoenix.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/648
Author: Ian Donnis

STUDENTS PRESS FIGHT ON PUNITIVE ACT

With the so-called global war on terror dominating public attention, 
another international battle - the war on drugs - often seems overlooked by 
comparison. Student activists nonetheless used the recent College 
Convention, a gathering in Manchester, New Hampshire, to press Democratic 
presidential candidates to repeal the Higher Education Act, a law that 
denies federal aid to students with a drug conviction on their record.

Tom Angell, a University of Rhode Island senior active with Students for 
Sensible Drug Policy (www.ssdp.org), reports that Wesley Clark, Howard 
Dean, Joseph Lieberman, and Dennis Kucinich backed HEA repeal.

John Kerry supports a partial repeal of the measure, and John Edwards 
declined to take a stance.

According to a news release by SSDP, which cosponsored the College 
Convention, Dean called the HEA a "dumb idea," adding, "If you want people 
to go college, you don't prevent them because they have a drug conviction. 
There's no possible sense in doing that."

About 300 students from around the country, mostly from New England, 
attended the College Convention, held January 6-10, to discuss progressive 
issues.

Although the drug war may have faded into the background, Angell, 21, notes 
that drug policy reform has become a more mainstream issue in recent years.

After starting with just a few backers, for example, SSDP has grown to 
consist of more than 200 high school and college chapters.

The HEA, created in 1998, meanwhile, has resulted in the denial of 
financial aid for more than 124,000 students, says SSDP. The act is up for 
reauthorization this year, and repeal has the local support of the URI 
faculty senate and university president Robert Carothers, Angell says.

Angell, a Warwick native, says he grew concerned about drug policy as a 
high school student, concluding that the drug war had not only failed, but 
gone too far in adversely affecting people's lives. "Once I learned they 
were trying to keep students out of school, I realized they're going after 
me," he recalls thinking. "I'm a high school student and now the drug war 
is [potentially] targeting me."

URI and Brown students played a prank on former drug czar Bill Bennett 
during the College Convention, distributing clear plastic cups with labels 
reading, "URINE SAMPLE: Tonight's speaker, William Bennett - former drug 
czar and secretary of education - respectfully requests your participation 
to ensure a drug-free audience and the safety of all attendees. Please 
deposit your completed sample in one of the conveniently located 
receptacles near the room's exits." Angell reports, "He said, 'Please hold 
your applause until the end. In fact, please hold everything.' He was 
definitely uncomfortable during the whole thing."

Prospects for change at the national level remain uncertain, since even 
Democrats like Bill Clinton have enthusiastically backed the status quo on 
drug policy.

Although Kucinich might bring a quick end to the drug war, he's unlikely to 
get the Democratic nomination. Dean, at least, told the College Convention 
that he'd back a drug czar with a health-care, rather than a military, 
background.

Meanwhile, a study commissioned by the National Institute on Drug Abuse 
found that the multi-million dollar advertising effort of the White House 
anti-drug office has had little effect in swaying the views of American 
teenagers, adage.com recently reported.

The Web site noted that the White House Office of National Drug Control 
Policy (ONDCP) spends in the neighborhood of $150 million a year on 
advertising. The NIDA report, meanwhile, indicates that ONDCP's ad 
campaigns had a "favorable effect" on parents, but not on children, whose 
illicit drug use is the target of the ads.
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