REHAB FOR REHAB

Drug Law Wrongly Targets Minor Users

Marisa Garcia was driving around near her California home with her former
boyfriend one night in 1999 when a police officer pulled up to them in a
gas station. The cop asked for her ex-boyfriend's license, which was
suspended. He also searched Garcia's car and found a small pipe containing
the ashes of some marijuana.

The ex-boyfriend wound up spending a few nights in jail for the suspended
license, while 18-year-old Garcia got a ticket for marijuana possession and
went to court and paid a $400 fine. But it didn't end there.

She'd applied for federal financial aid to attend California State
University, Fullerton, and soon afterward she got the application form
back. An occasional marijuana smoker, she had never been busted before, but
she hadn't answered the question on the form demanding to know if she'd
ever been convicted of selling or possessing drugs other than alcohol or
tobacco.

When she told the financial aid people about her violation, they informed
her that she was ineligible for any money.

"It completely knocked me off my feet," Garcia told me. "I didn't think
that having something like a drug conviction would affect your ability to
get money for school, and it didn't make much sense."

In 1998, Congress - pandering to the drug-war fanatics - passed an
amendment to the Higher Education Act disqualifying students from receiving
federal loans, grants or work-study if they were convicted of a drug offense.

It was a stupid law, supposedly designed to keep taxpayers' money out of
the hands of drug abusers. In actuality, it was more likely to drive
students who were trying to get an education right out into the streets.

The law was never intended to punish students for prior offenses, says
Indiana congressman Mark Souder, the bill's sponsor, but the federal
Department of Education chose to enforce it that way. Souder is trying to
amend the law to apply only to drug offenders who are already receiving aid.

But that doesn't make sense, either. In New York, we have a mayor who
admits to having joyfully smoked marijuana. If the cops rounded up every
American between 50 and 60 who has never used it or some other drug, they
might fill a small room. Meanwhile, a federal task force announced this
week that on a typical day four college students die in alcohol-related
accidents; 1,400 suffer alcohol-related injuries; and almost 200 are raped
or sexually assaulted after drinking. Alcohol and tobacco have long been
proven to be more harmful than cannabis, but the prudes in Congress - many
of whom have indulged in all three - have fixated on the drugs.

They're afraid if they admit that marijuana - the drug involved in more
than half of all drug arrests - is about as harmful as a couple of beers,
they might lose votes.

Not helping young people because they've committed a drug offense, be it
marijuana or a more serious drug, undermines what we say we want them to
do: become educated and productive, and not just useless dopeheads.

More than 40,000 prospective students have lost financial aid eligibility
for periods ranging from a year to indefinitely, often for possessing small
amounts of marijuana that only merited fines. They can get their
eligibility back by completing drug rehab programs. But such programs are
expensive and too restrictive if all you're talking about is an 18-year-old
who smokes pot a few times a month.

A lot of colleges and universities have called for the law's repeal, and
four - most recently Yale University - have promised to reimburse students
for any money they lose as a result of the policy.

Students for a Sensible Drug Policy, a Washington-based drug-law reform
group with chapters on many campuses, last year awarded its first
scholarship to a student who lost his financial aid because of the law. It
was named for John W. Perry, a New York City police officer who died in the
World Trade Center and was a critic of the current drug policy.

After Marisa Garcia lost her eligibility for financial aid, she looked into
drug rehab programs in the hope of getting reinstated more quickly. But
they were expensive, six-month live-in programs, and she didn't think she
had a drug problem.

Instead, she persuaded her boss at a flower shop to give her a raise and
let her work more hours, and her mother took out a loan to help pay her
tuition. A year after her arrest, she requalified for financial aid, and in
the fall she'll start the second semester of her junior year at California
State.

She swore off marijuana after her financial aid was suspended but sees the
federal law as more harmful than rehabilitative. "Scare tactics are not a
good way to educate a nation," she told me. "It's just closing doors."

Congress should realize the wisdom of this.