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DRUG POLICY HURTS MORE THAN HELPS, STUDENTS SAY

Students for a Sensible Drug Policy, a recently formed on-campus group, is focusing on key issues pertaining to current drug laws both locally and nationally. 

"It's important to stress that what we're trying to do isn't simply to grant people the legal right to get high," said Laura Eshelman, vice president of SSDP.  "Fighting the war on drugs is much more significant than that, and it extends to so many other areas of society." SSDP, a national grassroots activist organization created in 1998, has chapters on college campuses nationwide, including three others in North Carolina.  The main goals of SSDP are pushing for a sensible federal drug policy, as well as fighting back against the drug war policies, which harm many students, according to Eshelman. 

"Overall, we're trying to cultivate awareness on campus about the long-term harm that the war on drugs inflicts on the country and how it affects us directly or indirectly as students," Eshelman said.  "It would be ideal to get more students involved because a lot of them already disagree with current policies, but I think they feel like they can't do anything about them." Zachary Rosenberg, president of the UNC Asheville chapter of SSDP, said one of the group's main goals is to reverse a small part of the Higher Education Act.  "The organization was founded specifically to reverse a small part of the Higher Education Act which was slipped in by Congressman Mark Souder ( R-IN ) during reauthorization in 1999," Rosenberg said.  "This part says that any student receiving federal funds to go to college will have their federal funding revoked if convicted of a drug offense. 

SSDP has since expanded its scope to include all aspects of illegal drug and student interaction, and many outside that relationship." There are many students who feel the negative effects of this law, according to Eshelman. 

"Over 200,000 students in the United States have been denied federal aid for school because of drug convictions," Eshelman said.  "That can be for anything from cocaine possession to a mere gram of pot, but doesn't apply to convictions for any violent crimes." SSDP has criticized the war on drugs, a series of measures enacted by the United States Senate to stop illegal drug trade, as being unfair and ineffective. 

"The war on drugs is a destructive, unwinnable campaign that hurts much more than it helps," Rosenberg said.  "To the best of my knowledge, no society has ever been able to stop the production and consumption of drugs, least of all liberal democracies.  Locking up people for drug use does not stop people from using drugs. 

It is not an effective deterrent." In 2005, there were an estimated 1,846,400 arrests for drug abuse violations in the United States, according to information from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reports.  This number has been on the rise since 1980, according to the study. 

The report also showed that more than 80 percent of drug law violation arrests were for possession, and since 1996 the number of arrests involving marijuana exceeded that for other types of drugs. 

"At the moment, the United States has more prisoners in custody than any other nation on Earth, and the majority of them are nonviolent drug offenders," Rosenberg said. 

"We cannot stop drugs from being manufactured or coming into the country, there's just too much money in it, and the chances of interception are very low.  So, the best approach we could take to drugs is to minimize the harm they do to the users and minimize violence from the dealers and manufacturers." SSDP is open to all students on campus, according to Eshelman and Rosenberg.  The group meets every Tuesday at 5 p.m.  in the Highsmith dining area.  "I hear people complaining about anti-drug laws all the time, but few people actually want to get involved because they're either afraid or lazy, and that's frustrating to me," Eshelman said.  "I know a lot of good, capable students who have been kicked out of the residence halls or expelled from the university because they've been caught with marijuana. 

This is preposterous.  Not only does the student suffer, but the university loses someone who up until then contributed to the school's academic environment." The group's faculty sponsor is Mark Gibney, political science professor.  Gibney said he agrees with SDS that the current drug laws are ineffective.  "U.S.  drug policy is insane," Gibney said.  "I don't think it is possible to devise a system that is more racist, more expensive and more socially counter-productive than the one that we have." SSDP is the first group of its kind at UNC Asheville, according to Eshelman.  Although the group was recently created, the bake sale it sponsored last week raised awareness for the group and its cause. 

"This is a productive group, and one that I would be interested in joining," said Zach Shitama, senior student.  "UNC Asheville should have more political student groups that take a stand." The organization is an effective grassroots campaign, not an excuse for drug users to convene, according to Eshelman. 

"I do think a lot of people are feluctant to trust the group because they might see it as a 'drug club,' or a meeting ground for stoners," Eshelman said.  "Like other organizations, SSDP neither advocates nor condemns drug use itself. 

We're condemning the policies regarding it, and we're advocating change."