Pubdate: Fri, 13 Apr 2007
Source: Providence Journal, The (RI)
Copyright: 2007 The Providence Journal Company
Contact:  http://www.projo.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/352
Author: Bob Kerr
Cited: SSDP Northeast Regional Conference http://www.ssdp.org/northeast/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hea.htm (Higher Education Act)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?225 (Students - United States)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?219 (Students for Sensible Drug Policy)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Marijuana)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?159 (Drug Courts)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)

A LOOK AT A WAR WE CONTINUE TO LOSE

The war on drugs has long been about heavy bombing rather than 
thoughtful prevention.

Jails and prisons fill up due to mandatory sentencing laws. U.S. 
officials tell poor farmers in other countries that they have to 
destroy their cash crop because if they don't it will eventually go 
up the noses of bored Americans.

And the national drug appetite continues to grow and continues to 
demand more and more.

I remember once sitting in a college auditorium and listening to the 
petite Nancy Reagan bringing her "Just Say No" message to students 
who probably had done more research on the subject than she had.

The first lady presented a scene of lightweight good intentions 
tossed at a heavy, ugly, far reaching problem.

One of the truly hideous and self-defeating pieces of collateral 
damage inflicted by the war on drugs is the federal law that cuts off 
college financial aid to anyone convicted of drug offenses. Critics 
point out that the law simply denies students the very thing that 
would give them reason not to continue drug use -- and that other 
more serious crimes do not carry the same education penalty.

The law has been modified but not eliminated. It can still get in the 
way of an education.

"We share the simple belief that that if you take away someone's 
ability to gain an education, that person is more likely to turn 
toward drug use," says Brown University senior Matthew Palevsky. "We 
feel as members of Students For Sensible Drug Policy that we have to 
announce that this war, fought in our name, is leading to more crime 
and drug abuse."

He is one of the organizers of a regional conference that begins 
today at Brown and continues through the weekend. It is called 
"Confronting the Drug War: Envisioning Alternatives." The topics 
include "Building an Antiracist Movement" and "What If? A World 
Without the Drug War."

The members of the Brown chapter of SSDP say they want students to be 
better "engagers," to get beyond the campus and deal with the things 
that affect life down the hill and in the community.

There is the Drug Court, where they are finding that alternatives to 
jail time are often thwarted by the lack of beds in treatment 
centers. There is the absence of halfway houses for people coming out 
of prison. There is medical marijuana.

But this weekend it is the war on drugs they are looking at. It is 
something that colors almost everything else they do. They see 
reasons to change drug policy on a depressingly regular basis.

The three-day regional conference will take place in McMillan Hall on 
Thayer Street. For information, check www.ssdp.org/northeast.

The conference begins today at 5 when former Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee 
discusses "Politics of the Drug War."

Chafee, who teaches a noncredit course at Brown, calls the whole 
issue of drug policy and its reform "politically hazardous." He said 
that as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and 
chairman of its Western Hemisphere subcommittee, oversight of 
narcotics was one of his main concerns.

Chafee visited the "growing regions" where the raw products of 
illegal drugs are produced. He said that the standard U.S. response 
has been "interdiction, eradication and crop substitution."

But he says that coca growers are becoming a political force in some 
countries and political candidates who support them are getting elected.

"Sadly, we've had a lack of success with our efforts so far," he said. 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake