STATE DETERMINED TO BUST ANYONE DEALING MARIJUANA

The arrests this month of a Fairfield University student and two
Sacred Heart University students for selling marijuana shows local
authorities are serious when it comes to students selling the drug.
"Drug-dealing is drug-dealing whether it occurs on the streets of
Bridgeport or in a dormitory in Fairfield. We view it with equal
seriousness in either case," State's Attorney Jonathan Benedict said
last week. But state Rep. Michael Lawlor, co-chairman of the General
Assembly's Judiciary Committee, disagrees with prosecutors who would
send college students to jail for selling marijuana.

"Prosecutors don't have to send these kids to jail. They choose to.
These kids are getting more time than the violent offenders," he said.

Lawlor said that he advocates alternative punishments for college
marijuana dealers if they're first-time offenders. "If they end up
with a prison record it makes it difficult for them to get jobs down
the road," he added.

Last week, members of the Statewide Narcotics Task Force arrested a
senior at Fairfield University, after they allegedly found him with
more than 5 pounds of marijuana in an off-campus apartment.

On Feb. 1, police raided a Madison Avenue apartment in Bridgeport that
was the residence of a student at Sacred Heart. Police said they found
9 ounces of marijuana, $925 in cash and drug packaging materials
inside the apartment.

On Feb. 6, Fairfield police went to Sacred Heart University's Merton
Hall dormitory on a complaint of students with drugs. Police said that
inside a desk in one of the rooms they found a total of 41 grams of
marijuana in one large plastic bag and 26 smaller bags. There were
also some empty bags and a scale, police said.

According to state law, a conviction for sale of marijuana is
punishable by up to seven years in jail. Sale of marijuana within
1,500 feet of a school is punishable by a minimum sentence of three
years and a maximum of 10 years.

But Lawlor said a bill signed into law by then-Gov. John G. Rowland
before his 2004 resignation gave judges the right to go off the
minimum mandatory sentence.

Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for
the Review of Marijuana Laws, said the get-tough policy in Bridgeport
is an aberration and not a pattern across the country.

He said 80 percent of marijuana arrests are for people younger than
30, and half of marijuana arrests are for people younger than 25.
"Regardless of gender or one's station in life if one is between 15
and 25 you are in the crosshairs of law enforcement," he said. St.
Pierre said marijuana dealing is going on at colleges all the time,
but 80 percent of the sales are by individuals to finance their own
use. "One of the things so problematic is that the marijuana laws are
so subjectively applied," he said.

One of the major backlashes against drug crimes involving college
students is that they put their student loans in jeopardy.

St. Pierre said that in 1998 the federal government passed a law
revoking student loans from students convicted even of minor drug offenses.

He said that since then 175,000 students have been denied access to
student loans as a result.