The reason to fear drugs, we are told, is that they rob us of motivation and sense, that they destroy our ability to seize opportunities and make positive contributions to the world. And sometimes they do.
But though society should be upset when it catches young people with illicit drugs, it would be the worst possible step to possibly destroy these juvenile offenders' futures because of a mistake they made in high school. Yet, this is currently the policy of the United States.
In 1998, the Higher Education Act - the bill that in 1965 created the Free Application for Federal Student Aid system of financial aid - was amended through a drug provision bill, which required that all FAFSA applications include the question "Have you ever been convicted of possessing or selling illegal drugs?" Any applicant who answers in the affirmative, or leaves the question blank, automatically becomes ineligible for aid. Supposedly, the bill only intended for students convicted of drug possession while receiving aid to be affected, but the law has been consistently interpreted since its inception in 2000 as applying to anyone with a prior conviction.
Just what the drug provision was supposed to accomplish, even under its supposed original intent, is unclear - except, of course, to allow grandstanding politicians the chance to pass a draconian law to prove themselves "tough on crime." According to Tom Angell, the national communications director of Students For Sensible Drug Policy, over 160,000 students have been denied aid in the last five years, not counting the unknown number who declined to complete or submit applications due to the question's inclusion. That's the equivalent of 29 entire Brown undergraduate student bodies. According to Brown Director of Financial Aid Michael Bartini, no student has been unable to attend Brown on account of a drug conviction, but that only measures people who actually applied, not those who may not have even bothered to send in an application because they knew they couldn't afford to attend without aid.
Clearly, politicking is more important to some than letting underprivileged youths, the ones who are perhaps most vulnerable to getting sucked into the "drug culture," have the chance to extricate themselves from their problems. The law is inherently discriminatory, affecting poor and middle-income families and not the upper classes. Minorities are disproportionately represented among drug convicts - the law disproportionately affects already disadvantaged groups. If drugs are a malignancy from which people must be rescued, is denying offenders the chance to gain a postsecondary education really a productive way to save people? Can we live with ourselves in a society where a poor kid who once got caught smoking pot can no longer afford to go to college while a wealthy fop repeatedly caught with kilos of cocaine doesn't have to worry simply because he happened to be born with privilege?
Fortunately, this counterproductive and discriminatory law is not being ignored. In addition to active opposition from SSDP, which was originally founded to fight this law, organizations such as the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, the Association of Addiction Professionals, the NAACP and the National Education Association have also come out in support of rescinding the drug provision. In January, the congressionally appointed independent Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance recommended removal of the "irrelevant" drug question, because it only complicates the FAFSA and deters some from applying for aid to which they are entitled.
On March 9, congressman Barney Frank, D-Mass., formally introduced a bill to repeal the drug provision of the HEA, the Removing Impediments To Students' Education Act. In Rhode Island, Representative James Almeida recently introduced the Higher Education Assistance Act of 2005, which proposes compensating students who lose funding via the federal drug provision. The so-called drug provision is under siege, but no result is foreordained in our present conservative government. Brown SSDP and other chapters throughout the state are currently spearheading a drive to lobby legislators to bring down this discriminatory law once and for all. When offenders have gone through the standard punishments and rehabilitation, society should encourage them to reassert control over their lives by completing school and to possibly go on to higher education. The time has come to stop putting the politics of the drug war above the welfare of the United States' less fortunate citizens.
Jesse Adams '07 thinks politicking is less important than fighting the man.
