SHOULDN'T WE TRY TO HELP YOUNG OFFENDERS?

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 at
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 - mostly 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 financal 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 Cal 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.