Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?219 (Students for Sensible Drug Policy)

RETHINKING THE HEA'S DRUG PROVISION

The reason to fear drugs, we are told, is that they rob us of motivation
and sense, that they destroy our ability to seize opportunities and make
positive contributions to the world. And sometimes they do.

But though society should be upset when it catches young people with
illicit drugs, it would be the worst possible step to possibly destroy
these juvenile offenders' futures because of a mistake they made in high
school. Yet, this is currently the policy of the United States.

In 1998, the Higher Education Act - the bill that in 1965 created the Free
Application for Federal Student Aid system of financial aid - was amended
through a drug provision bill, which required that all FAFSA applications
include the question "Have you ever been convicted of possessing or selling
illegal drugs?" Any applicant who answers in the affirmative, or leaves the
question blank, automatically becomes ineligible for aid. Supposedly, the
bill only intended for students convicted of drug possession while
receiving aid to be affected, but the law has been consistently interpreted
since its inception in 2000 as applying to anyone with a prior conviction.

Just what the drug provision was supposed to accomplish, even under its
supposed original intent, is unclear - except, of course, to allow
grandstanding politicians the chance to pass a draconian law to prove
themselves "tough on crime." According to Tom Angell, the national
communications director of Students For Sensible Drug Policy, over 160,000
students have been denied aid in the last five years, not counting the
unknown number who declined to complete or submit applications due to the
question's inclusion. That's the equivalent of 29 entire Brown
undergraduate student bodies. According to Brown Director of Financial Aid
Michael Bartini, no student has been unable to attend Brown on account of a
drug conviction, but that only measures people who actually applied, not
those who may not have even bothered to send in an application because they
knew they couldn't afford to attend without aid.

Clearly, politicking is more important to some than letting underprivileged
youths, the ones who are perhaps most vulnerable to getting sucked into the
"drug culture," have the chance to extricate themselves from their
problems. The law is inherently discriminatory, affecting poor and
middle-income families and not the upper classes. Minorities are
disproportionately represented among drug convicts - the law
disproportionately affects already disadvantaged groups. If drugs are a
malignancy from which people must be rescued, is denying offenders the
chance to gain a postsecondary education really a productive way to save
people? Can we live with ourselves in a society where a poor kid who once
got caught smoking pot can no longer afford to go to college while a
wealthy fop repeatedly caught with kilos of cocaine doesn't have to worry
simply because he happened to be born with privilege?

Fortunately, this counterproductive and discriminatory law is not being
ignored. In addition to active opposition from SSDP, which was originally
founded to fight this law, organizations such as the National Association
of Student Financial Aid Administrators, the Association of Addiction
Professionals, the NAACP and the National Education Association have also
come out in support of rescinding the drug provision. In January, the
congressionally appointed independent Advisory Committee on Student
Financial Assistance recommended removal of the "irrelevant" drug question,
because it only complicates the FAFSA and deters some from applying for aid
to which they are entitled.

On March 9, congressman Barney Frank, D-Mass., formally introduced a bill
to repeal the drug provision of the HEA, the Removing Impediments To
Students' Education Act. In Rhode Island, Representative James Almeida
recently introduced the Higher Education Assistance Act of 2005, which
proposes compensating students who lose funding via the federal drug
provision. The so-called drug provision is under siege, but no result is
foreordained in our present conservative government. Brown SSDP and other
chapters throughout the state are currently spearheading a drive to lobby
legislators to bring down this discriminatory law once and for all. When
offenders have gone through the standard punishments and rehabilitation,
society should encourage them to reassert control over their lives by
completing school and to possibly go on to higher education. The time has
come to stop putting the politics of the drug war above the welfare of the
United States' less fortunate citizens.

Jesse Adams '07 thinks politicking is less important than fighting the man.