COLLEGE DRUG USERS COULD LOSE FINANCIAL AID

Forget Jan. 1, 2000. Apparently, a more important date -- for high
school and college students, anyway -- could be July 1, 2000.

That is when a federal law goes into effect that could strip students
of their college financial aid for any drug conviction, no matter how
minor.

One conviction could mean a student would lose work-study and
financial aid for a full school year.

A Republican-controlled Congress approved the new provision, which is
part of the Higher Education Act, and President Bill Clinton signed it
into law in October 1998.

Drug policy reform advocates are mobilizing on college campuses across
the country to overturn the provision.

"Twelve student governments have endorsed a resolution calling for the
drug provision to be overturned," said 20-year-old Kris Lotlikar,
campus coordinator for the Drug Reform Coordination Network, a
Washington-based nonprofit organization.

The NAACP and -- according to Lotlikar -- students on 150 campuses
support H.R. 1053, a bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Barney Frank
(D-Mass.), to repeal the drug conviction provision.

At George Washington University in Washington, student activists plan
to convene the first-ever student-run "Sensible Drug Policy
Convention" in November, said Lotlikar, a junior at Rochester
Institute of Technology.

Convention planners have the backing of NAACP's Youth and College
Division, which will co-sponsor of the event, according to Hiewet
Senghor, the organization's national college coordinator.

"This is a NAACP bread and butter issue. It's our mission to work
against anything that works against the advancement of young people,"
Senghor said.

The problem, Senghor said, is that the new federal aid restriction
could worsen an existing imbalance in the justice system when it comes
to blacks and whites in jail.

Already, more whites are arrested for drug-related offenses than
blacks. But blacks face convictions at higher rates than whites, she
said.

National rates of imprisonment for blacks are higher than for other
groups and the number of black drug convictions far outpace that of
whites, according to The Sentencing Project, a Washington nonprofit
group that analyzes criminal justice policy.

Come July, minorities will add another whammy to the existing
disproportionate number of drug convictions, Senghor argued: a
possible loss of their financial aid.

"You could be a high school senior and make a mistake [with drugs] and
be hurt by this law," Senghor said, adding that the NAACP is going to
take up the issue at its October board meeting and prepare an official
statement on it.

"But a rich, white kid can abuse drugs and not lose his financial aid
under this law," Senghor says.

Under the law, a student who is convicted of any drug offense would be
suspended one year for the first offense, two years for the second
offense and indefinitely for the third offense.

If a student is convicted of selling drugs, financial assistance would
be suspended for two years for a first offense and the student could
lose aid indefinitely for a second conviction.

Students can get their financial aid back before the suspension period
only if they complete a rehabilitation program. The U.S. Department of
Education is expected to accept terms for these programs by Nov. 1.

The primary sponsor of the provision, U.S. Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.),
an evangelical Christian, has said that taxpayers should not have to
subsidize the college education of students who use or sell drugs.

"Actions have consequences. If you receive taxpayer assistance to
pursue your college education, you will be held accountable for
investing it wisely," he wrote in a February edition of The Cavalier
Daily, the student newspaper at the University of Virginia.