Pubdate: Tue, 25 Apr 2006
Source: San Francisco Bay Guardian, The (CA)
Copyright: 2006 San Francisco Bay Guardian
Contact:  http://www.sfbg.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/387
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

STUDENTS, DRUGS, AND A LAW OF INTENDED CONSEQUENCES

A few weeks before Marisa Garcia started her first  semester of 
college in 2000, a cop found a pipe with  marijuana residue in her 
car. The pipe was hers, so she  fessed up, went to court, paid her 
fine, and thought  the case was closed.

Soon after, Garcia, the daughter of a single mother  with three other 
college-age children, lost the  financial aid she'd been counting on 
to cover her  tuition costs at Cal State Fullerton. She called her 
school and found out it was because of the drug charge:  The Higher 
Education Act makes students with a drug  conviction ineligible for 
financial aid. Garcia had  never heard of the law before.

She's not alone in her predicament. A study by the  reform group 
Students for Sensible Drug Policy,  released April 17, found that 
more than 180,000  students have lost or been denied financial aid 
under this law since it went into effect in 2000. California  has had 
the highest number of students affected: a  startling 31,000. The 
group hopes the overall numbers  will spur Congress to repeal the law.

The law is intended to be a deterrent to drug use, but  critics 
question its effectiveness. "Most people don't  find out about it 
until it's too late," Tom Angell,  campaign director for SSDP, said. 
"If kids are thinking  about using drugs, they're supposed to say, 
'No, I  could lose my aid.' But not a lot of people know about  it 
until they come across it on their financial aid  form."

Since Garcia lost her aid, the act has been amended to  apply only to 
students who get busted while receiving  financial assistance. But 
that doesn't fully address  the concerns of its critics, who see it 
as counterproductive.

"[The law] affects the very students whom the Higher  Education Act 
was intended to assist in the first place  when it was passed in 
1965: the students from low- and  middle-income families, the ones 
who cannot afford  college tuition on their own," Angell said. "These 
are the people who, when they get a conviction and lose  their 
financial aid, are forced to drop out."

Critics also contend that those punished for using  drugs shouldn't 
be penalized a second time for that  same crime. "If you break the 
law, there is a system of  justice that is designed to deal with 
you," said Tom  Kaley, spokesperson for Rep. George Miller, the 
senior  Democrat on the House Education Committee, who supports  the 
repeal of the law. "But then to have the Department  of Education add 
another punch on top of that sounds a  lot like double jeopardy."

That issue and others prompted the SSDP and the  American Civil 
Liberties Union to file a federal  class-action lawsuit March 22 
seeking to overturn the  law. That suit, in combination with the 
study, seeks to  highlight how damaging the law has been.

"Now all members of Congress know exactly how many of  their own 
constituents are devastated by the policy,"  Angell said. "They're 
not going to be able to keep  ignoring it year after year while tens 
of thousands of  students lose financial aid. They're going to have 
to do something about it." (Hunter Jackson)

www.ssdp.org/lawsuit
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman