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.