FLAWED AND UNFAIR

There's no doubt that the scourge of illegal drugs is destroying both
people and communities, fueling crime and violence, filling our court
dockets and prisons and sapping all of society.

There are laws to catch, punish and, hopefully, rehabilitate those who
use and abuse drugs. But one law that bans federal college financial aid
to applicants with drug convictions is an unfair punishment that keeps
those with drugs in their past from improving themselves.

That ban could deny more than 34,000 people the loans and grants they
need to get an education in the coming school year - more than triple
those turned away in 2000-01.

Even the congressman who authored the provision thinks the ban on
college aid has gone too far. U.S. Rep. Mark Souder, an Indiana
Republican, intended that his ban only apply to students who were
convicted while receiving aid. First-time applicants weren't supposed to
fall under it.

That's not the way it has worked out.

Beginning with the Clinton administration and continuing - even
intensifying - under President Bush, education officials denied grants
and rejected loans not only to students who, while receiving aid, were
charged and convicted of drug activity but also to people with previous
convictions.

Anyone who has been convicted of selling or possessing drugs is denied
federal grants, work-study money and U.S.-backed and subsidized student
loans, like the Stafford loans used by so many to go to college.

For those convicted of a first drug-possession offense, ineligibility
lasts a year after conviction. For a second offense, it's two years.
More convictions bar aid indefinitely, though exemption is granted to
offenders who subsequently enroll in a treatment program.

Not surprisingly, the law is tougher on those who sell drugs. A single
drug sale conviction means aid ineligibility for two years; more than
that and the ban is indefinite.

The overall law raises an issue of fundamental fairness because it
punishes people a second time who've accepted their punishment and paid
their debt to society. It holds back the very people we, as a society,
say need to better themselves through education so they won't fall back
into drugs. What happened to the country of the second chance?

And what about proportionality? This law treats drug offenses far
differently than any other crime. There's no ban for those who've
robbed, raped or even murdered.

Under this law, an 18-year-old arrested and convicted on charges of
possession of a bag of marijuana can forget college aid - at least for a
year. And for the person who got heavily involved in drugs and got
caught several times but has now gone straight, federal college aid will
never be.

This law is likely to hit hardest poorer students, who rely on federal
college aid, and blacks, who make up a disproportionate share of those
arrested on drug charges.

Education can be a way out of not only poverty but also of dependency.
It can be a path from a failed life to successful and productive one.

Do we really want such an unjust law blocking the way?