DRUG POLICY HURDLE SET TOO HIGH

Taking drugs illegal is usually dumb, but enforcement policies can be just
as moronic.

Congress in 1998 restricted financial aid for students convicted of
possessing selling drugs. Eligibility is suspended for one year for a
first drug-possession conviction, two years for a second conviction,
indefinitely for a third. A student can regain eligibility by completing a
drug-rehabilitation program, but this is unusual in many places for
first-time offenders.

Last year, out of nearly 10 million applicants, 9,114 lost all or part of
their grants, loans and work assistance because of the law. Another 279,044
left the application's drug-query line blank but had their grants
processed. A non-answer this year will result in rejection, the Bush
Administration says.

The restrictions, the Coalition for Higher Education Act Reform estimates,
will officially affect 40,000-50,000 students nationally in the coming
year, plus an unknown number of would-be students who don't bother to apply
because they rightly or wrongly believe they won't qualify for aid because
of drug convictions.

Because $700,000 of federal money is mixed with $19 million a year of
Opportunity Grants that our Legislature allots for needy students,
Oregonians who run afoul of the federal law also will get turned down for
state grants.

There's a bad odor to this mix of education and law-enforcement policies.

Marijuana is by far the most common illegal drug for which Americans are
arrested: 704,812 marijuana arrests in 1999, of which 620,541, or 88
percent, were for possession alone.

Typical victims of this drug law come from middle-or low-income families
and have already been punished for misdemeanor marijuana possession. Most
are young and are likely to be first-time offenders.

This tells us that the people the restrictions harm most are those we would
have the best chance to help if we kept them in school. It is damaging and
disgusting, worse than wasteful, to see the law getting in the way of
people who are straightening out their lives.

There is also a stench here of economic injustice. Who is easier to
prosecute ­ the indigent kid caught with a dime bag of pot or the child of
a prominent, prosperous businessman? Low- and moderate-income families get
hit hardest because wealthy parents are better able to afford the cost of
fighting their children's drug charges.

Also, why should only children of low-income families face the double
jeopardy of losing a college education after paying for their crimes in a
court?

Of course, the law won't keep dangerous drug dealers off campuses. They
don't need financial aid!

Repeat alcohol offenders still will get loans and grants to stay in
school. So will others who are more dangerous to campuses than wrongheaded
marijuana dabblers ­ drunken drivers, rapists and criminal assaulters, for
example.

The aid ban also ahs a suspiciously lopsided effect racially. About 13
percent of the people taking illegal drugs are black, says David Borden,
executive director of the Drug Reform Coordination Network. That matches
their share of the overall population. But African Americans represent 55
percent of the drug convictions ­ and are certainly overrepresented in
being denied aid.

Thus, our drug policy works against our social policy of helping
disadvantaged minority students to succeed.

The law also is trapping more students than Rep. Mark Souder of Indiana
says he intended when he introduced the aid amendment to the Higher
Education Act of 1998. The ban was supposed to apply only to students who
were convicted while receiving aid ­ students who had abused a publicly
granted opportunity. First-time applicants for aid were not to have been
affected. Somewhere between the law's drafting and executive rule-making,
the enforcement net grew.

Souder has said he would work with the administration to clear up the mess.
Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts has a better idea: Repeal the law. It
is an administrative and economic burden. It helps neither higher
education nor drug enforcement.

Oregon's Rep. David Wu should work for repeal when the bill is taken up by
the Education and Workforce Committee on which he serves.

Contact Rep. David Wu 202/225-0855 DC 202/225-9497 fax 503/326-2901 Local
503/326-5066 fax david.wu@mail.house.gov