DRUG PROVISION SHOULD BE REPEALED

For years, students filling out the forms necessary to get financial aid
from the federal government have had to answer a question asking them
whether they have ever been convicted of an illegal drug offense. If their
answer was yes, they were immediately declared ineligible for federal
financial aid.

The purpose behind this is understandable. The federal government is trying
to discourage young people from using illegal drugs. While the wisdom
behind the laws prohibiting drugs like marijuana can be argued, the simple
fact remains that it is against the law to use them, no matter how a person
feels about a law. A person doesn't have a license to break the law just
because they don't favor it.

However, by not allowing students who were previously convicted of a drug
offense to receive federal financial aid, the government is denying
opportunities to people who are not necessarily hardened criminals.

While it is proper to punish people for breaking the law, those who have
been convicted of drug offenses have already served their time. Punishing
these people twice for their mistake is unfair. Instead of allowing these
offenders to rejoin law-abiding society after being punished, they are
simply being excluded from mainstream society.

What is most striking about this policy is the obvious bias in it against
the poor. Denying federal financial aid to a student from a wealthy
background does little, if anything, to affect his life. However, students
who come from families where money is not plentiful will be far more
seriously affected by this provision. This law is doing nothing to
discourage wealthy students from using drugs, but instead only blocking the
poor from attending college.

This zero-tolerance policy makes little more sense than suspending school
children for bringing plastic knives to school. It does not target only
large-scale drug dealers who are threatening American society, but also the
kid who smokes pot on his 18th birthday or the patient who uses medical
marijuana.

Members of the U.S. Congress should carefully consider the adverse effects
this obscure provision in the laws governing federal financial aid is
having on students across the country. It has been estimated that as many
as 16,000 students have been denied federal financial aid as a result of
this ban. How many more students need to be deprived of an education before
Congress acts?