UNFAIR DRUG LAW

Scholarship Policy Punishes Students for Crimes Already Handled by The
Courts

Something is horribly amiss when the government will grant federal aid
for education to violent offenders such as murderers, rapists,
arsonists, armed robbers and child molesters, but not to a former drug
offender trying to get his life back on track. Something is not right
when such a law affects drug offenders from wealthy families very
little while robbing those convicted of the same crime in poorer
families of the opportunity for an education. Something is terribly
wrong with a law when its author has encouraged those who have
suffered because of it to sue the government.

A provision enacted in October 1998 under the Higher Education Act
bans past drug offenders from receiving student financial aid but does
more harm than good and fails to accomplish the purpose for which it
was originally established.

According to the provision, aid in the form of federal grants and
loans is suspended for one year following a first drug offense and two
years following the second. For students, this means that as many as
26,000 applicants were refused assistance in 2003, not including those
who never bothered to apply as a result of the rule, University Wire
reported.

Many of the would-be students were denied aid on account of drug
possessions for which they had already been punished and sentenced
years before. For them, the law did not deter drug use, as was its
intent, but rather in ex post facto style "end(ed) up discouraging
people from moving on with their lives," as Michael Dean, a
Denver-based substance abuse counselor told The New York Times. "At
what point in our society do we say that a person has paid their debt?"

His concern is echoed by Jason Bell, a senior at San Francisco State
University who served almost 10 years in prison for attempted murder
and now assists other ex-convicts in getting a higher education. Bell
wonders how he managed to fund his education through federal loans and
grants - without a problem - while so many convicted of much more
minor crimes have such difficulty. "It's a form of double jeopardy,"
he told the Times. "They do the time, but then there are still
roadblocks when they finish. I don't believe people should be punished
twice."

The author of the law, Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., agrees. "It's absurd
on the face of it," he told the Times.

Souder blames the Clinton and Bush administrations for the
misapplication of the law, saying they transformed it from its
intended purpose of discouraging drug use among financial aid
recipients to a means of keeping reformed offenders from getting an
education, arguably the most essential factor in rising above a life
of drug use.

Education is especially important for poor students, if they are to
escape poverty and the lifestyle of crime that so often accompanies
it. These students are hardest hit by the law, as wealthier students
are more likely to attend college, without federal aid. The
discrimination is intensified by the fact that wealthy families are
also more likely to avoid drug convictions in the first place, as they
can afford more expensive legal counsel, according to University Wire.

In defense of the provision, proponents cite the stipulation that
students can regain aid through attending drug treatment. However,
many treatment programs are as expensive as a year of college,
coverage by private insurance companies is scant and in some states
such as Connecticut, subsidies for inpatient youth treatment have been
virtually eliminated, as reported by The Associated Press. "If I
couldn't afford to pay for school, then how was I supposed to pay for
these programs?" one student said to the Times.

Congress is scheduled to clarify the law, as the president's latest
budget includes a commitment for its revision. According to the
proposed change, the law would then apply only to students already in
college when the offense was committed. Though this revised law would
be better than the first, it would continue to discriminate against
poor offenders and hinder small or first-time offenders from finishing
their educations in a move more conducive to perpetuating their drug
use than ending it.

As Jen Choi points out in The Lantern, Ohio State University's
newspaper, both the current law and the proposed revision must be
abandoned as they are contrary to the "ultimate goal of the Higher
Education Act, to make college more accessible to all students; not
more difficult."