BRANDEIS SSDP CHAPTER ORGANIZES NEW CLUB

Looks To Alter National Drug Policies

After a year of planning, students have organized a Brandeis chapter
of the nationally active group Students for a Sensible Drug Policy.
Chartered by the Student Union last month, SSDP aims at promoting
policy changes in the "war on drugs."

SSDP does not condone or condemn drug use," explained Jonathan
Sussman '11, one of the group's founders.

We see it as a personal matter. We don't want to focus on using
drugs. We want to focus on the ramifications of the 'war on drugs.
It's about an emphasis on changing drug policy," he said.

According to its website, the national SSDP organization is "an
international grassroots network of students who are concerned about
the impact drug abuse has on our communities, but who also know that
the War on Drugs is failing our generation and our society."

The group claims that it "mobilizes and empowers young people to
participate in the political process, pushing for sensible policies
to achieve a safer and more just future, while fighting back against
counterproductive Drug War policies."

I keep on seeing story after story of people being beat up by the war
on drugs, and honestly is doesn't make any sense to me," said Sussman.

According to its founders, SSDP is not focusing on drug legalization,
but instead aims to highlight the social and financial results of
America's drug policies, which the founders claim wastes money and
unnecessarily taxes the prison system, while exacerbating racial and
class divides.

People see the words drug and policy and think, legalize, legalize,
legalize," said Samuel Bromberg '08, another of the group's founding
members. "Basically, we're looking at how to have better policies in place."

There's a racial disparity in people being punished [for drug
offenses]," Bromberg continued. "The war on drugs is one of America's
last standing racially biased institutions."

SSDP's founders explained that the organization would like to fight
against legislation such as the Higher Education Act, which prevents
persons convicted of drug offenses from receiving federal aid to
attend college.

Right now, however, the group is still working to get the ball
rolling on programming.

We're not much in the planning phase right now, but the thinking
phase," acknowledged Bromberg. SSDP's first real program, showing a
film entitled "The War on the War on Drugs," will take place in early November.

The group would also like to begin sponsoring forums that address
drug policy issues.

In explaining the group's aims, Bromberg acknowledged that Brandeis
drug policies are not a problem.

We're not trying to undermine the police, the administration, or
anything," he said. "It's actually an amazing campus for pushing
[drug] counseling, not punishment."

We're not going to say that the SSDP way is the right way," added Bromberg.

I don't want anyone to feel we're pushing it onto them. We want to
instigate change, we want to be active, we want to make a difference."