DENYING FINANCIAL AID SOCIALLY HARMFUL

To the Cigar,

Bruce Goodish is so rabid in his distaste for anyone who has ever been
caught with any drug whatsoever that he is willing to pay a huge price in
the form of taxes to punish these people many of whom are guilty of a crime
harming only themselves. I am not. Furthermore, it does not follow that
persons excluded from obtaining student loans because of the prohibition
contained in the Higher Education Act are necessarily "druggies." Many
persons so excluded are rehabilitated drug users. Squelching their future
prospects through Draconian and socially harmful strategies as denying
education loans to any student ever convicted of any drug offense -
including simple possession of marijuana - is government at its cruelest
and most senseless. And God forbid if we were to give any criminal a second
chance at bettering themselves, Mr. Goodish? I suppose you support life
imprisonment without the possibility of parole for first time simple
possession of marijuana, too? That is, you will like it until you see your
tax bill after a few years. And anyway, as long as marijuana remains
illegal, national studies confirm that your daughter will have an easier
time obtaining it than she does obtaining alcohol and tobacco regardless of
what the Higher Education Act has to say. Or does this argument fall on
deaf ears because alcohol and tobacco are drugs you hypocritically approve of?

Thomas J. Hillgardner, Esq.

Jamaica, New York