DRUG LAW TRIPS OVER CONTRADICTIONS

There are some dumb laws out there. In Vermont, whistling underwater is
illegal. In Arizona, it is illegal for donkeys to sleep in bathtubs. For
some reason, Pennsylvania has not one but three dumb laws about fishing: You
may not catch a fish with your hands; you may not catch a fish by any body
part except the mouth; and dynamite is not to be used to catch fish.

Though it's not quite up there with the dynamite-fishing law, the Department
of Education has been enforcing a pretty dumb law for the last two years.
The law denies college financial aid to students with drug convictions. To
date, the department has denied 21,000 people financial aid because of it,
and that number doesn't include countless others who didn't even apply
because they feared rejection.

This law is unsound for many reasons. The first indicator that it's a bad
law is that it's not even doing what its author -- Rep. Mark Edward Souder
(R-Ind.) -- wanted it to do. Souder's spokesman told The Washington Post
that, "This is absolutely, 100 percent not what Congressman Souder intended"
("College financial aid rule attacked," Nov. 10). Souder wanted students to
be cut off from financial aid only if they were convicted of drug charges
while they were already receiving aid. However, the Department of Education
has insisted that the law covers anyone with a drug conviction, and Souder's
attempts to clarify the wording through legislation have not succeeded.

Under its original intent, the law was reasonable -- the government
shouldn't fund someone's education if they're going to piddle the
opportunity away by doing drugs. However, the government should not continue
to punish students for mistakes they made -- and paid for -- in the past. If
people who have been convicted of committing drug crimes have served their
time, paid their fine or otherwise fulfilled their debt to society, they
should be able to get on with their lives unhindered by their previous
mistakes.

As well as being devoid of any small measure of fairness, the present
interpretation of Souder's law lacks sense from a policy standpoint. Much of
our penal system is based on the principle of rehabilitation. In theory, the
criminal justice system is supposed to rehabilitate people who commit crimes
so that when they are through serving their time, they will be good citizens
and not commit more offenses. This law, however, works against the idea of
rehabilitation by striking at offenders' best opportunity to improve
themselves: education.

Furthermore, because people who have drug convictions are disproportionately
from socioeconomically disadvantaged classes, the surest way to keep them
there after they're done serving their time is to keep their only window of
opportunity closed and locked tight. Education is the key to getting people
out of bad situations, and without the help of governmental financial aid,
the majority of them won't be able to do it. By barring them from the only
way out, repeat offenses would ensue.

If people who have made mistakes with drugs are taking the initiative to get
themselves educated and don't commit another offense, more power to them.
The government should be funding their self-improvement efforts, not
hampering them.

Drug use is the only crime that carries the penalty of being banned from
financial aid, which is strange considering that, in the language of
criminologists, drug use is a "victimless" crime. It is victimless in that
the only people harmed by most drug offenses are the offenders themselves.
It's unreasonable that those who commit victimless crimes are punished under
this law, while no other crimes -- including those that do have victims --
carry this provision. People who have committed rape, murder, arson and
treason can receive financial aid from the government, but people who have
used drugs cannot.

The Department of Education is enforcing a dumb law. The government should
grant financial aid to people who have past drug convictions. Past mistakes
are just that -- past mistakes. People with drug convictions should be able
to move on with their lives after having paid their debt to society, and the
government shouldn't prevent them from doing so. Congress should change the
law so that Souder's original intention for it is brought to fruition.