Pubdate: Wed, 09 Aug 2000
Source: Indianapolis Star (IN)
Copyright: 2000 Indianapolis Newspapers Inc.
Contact:  http://www.starnews.com/
Forum: http://forum.circlecity.com/circlecity/index.html
Author: Dan Carpenter
Bookmark: MAP's link to Indiana articles is: http://www.mapinc.org/states/in

DRUG TEST: SAYING YES MEANS NO

It's not all quiet on the newest front in the war against drugs, but most
of the noise so far is political pyrotechnics.

U.S. Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., who wants to use the federal college
financial aid system as a radar net against the narcotics movement, is
irked by the early results.

He wants more bang from the U.S. Department of Education, which concedes it
produced a confusing form for students to use to list their drug
convictions and open themselves to loss of eligibility for federal
assistance for varying periods.

The department says it's fixing the problem; but Souder in the meantime has
proceeded legislatively, proposing an amendment to the 1998 Higher
Education Act, which carries the self-incrimination requirement.

The congressman's spokesperson questions the Education Department's
commitment to fighting drugs and hints darkly that the snafu might call for
"a new administration." That would be the GOP, which teems with people who
resent the very existence of the Department of Education.

PONDERING THE BIG PICTURE

While we ponder whether there should be a Department of Education, and
whether its bureaucrats should be joining up with college financial aid
officers to probe criminal histories, we note that the effect of the law so
far has been statistically minimal.

In this, the first year of implementation, fewer than 1,000 applicants out
of nearly 7 million have been disqualified because they indicated on the
Free Application for Federal Student Aid that they had drug convictions.

How many misread the question -- which required the applicant to mark a box
if he had not been convicted -- and how many simply lied are not known.
Souder's people say there are ways for the educators to find out for sure.
Some college financial aid officers -- though not the Department of
Education, at least not officially -- say they've got enough to do without
playing cop.

If there is a victory waiting to be grasped, it may be a Pyrrhic one.

Should Souder, who has enjoyed overwhelming congressional backing as point
man in this campaign, get the enforcement he seeks and start building a
real body count, this war could come home.

The vague consternation many of us feel over the arbitrary linkage between
education opportunity and police trouble might crystallize when a point is
reached at which everybody knows of somebody who had to drop out of college
because he got caught with a joint, maybe on campus or maybe 300 miles away
during the summer. Faces will be in the media, and they won't look like
Superfly.

THE 'BEST HOPE'

The best hope for the kids who really need the aid, and who thus become the
prime prey of the law, is that a substantial number of better-connected
scholars might get swept up and might express their newly heightened civil
libertarian outrage directly to Souder and/or his colleagues.

Yes, that's a cynical way to look at it. Angela Flood, Souder's assistant
for legislative affairs, says the issue ought to be illegal drug use by
young people and whether we're serious about stopping it. "There seems to
be this attitude that it's a normal part of campus life," she says.

College administrators, who run countless programs to curb drug and alcohol
abuse, would deny having such an attitude. But campuses do have drug
problems. So does the rest of the nation. Punishment hasn't helped much.
While overall crime declines, the prison industry is growing, thanks mostly
to drug possession sentencing. People, not drugs, are this war's
casualties.

A case can be made for refusing to let tax dollars subsidize somebody's
drug habit or drug business. But marking a box on a piece of paper hardly
makes such a correlation. Each individual who enters the justice system
does so under unique circumstances. That's why we have judges.

Given today's astronomical college costs, denial of financial aid for a
year or two years for a transgression that a different kid with a different
lawyer might have gotten erased sends a stronger message about fairness and
due process than about morality and health.

Look: A convicted murderer can earn a college degree in prison at
government expense. When a free citizen with a victimless crime on his
record can't get a college loan, that is society's brain on drugs.
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MAP posted-by: Eric Ernst