Daniel Forbes

STUDENTS FIGHT DRUG-WAR DRAGNET

Rep.  Mark Souder Deflects Blame For Withdrawing Loans From Students With Drug Convictions

Souder's Retreat is Just "A Smoke Screen", says SSDP

IN JANUARY, the Department of Education announced the bad news: More than 29,000 students were d enied financial aid under a part of the Higher Education Act that refuses loans to students with drug convictions.  The law has sparked one of the fastest-growing student movements, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, now present on more than 200 Campuses nationwide.  For more than three years, SSDP has been waging a coordinated campaign for the law's repeal.  Now, the congressman who wrote the troublesome legislation, Indiana Republican Mark Souder, is showing signs of weakness.  He blames the Department of Education for "misinterpreting" the law.  Souder maintains that he never intended it to affect people busted before they went to college; only students currently getting federal aid, he now says, must be clean.  Souder is even threatening to drag education officials before Congress to explain their actions, after the Education Department declared that it lacks the authority to reinterpret the law. 

Souder spokesman Seth Becker says Souder is motivated by the fact that "he sees people dying every day" from drugs.  Few of these, of course, are students caught in their dorm with some pot on a Friday night.  Asked whether marijuana smokers need rehab ( one way to restore financial aid ), Becker at first says he doesn't know.  But then he terms pot a gateway drug and "dangerous stuff."

Souder's attack on the Department of Education is just "a smoke screen," says Shawn Heller, national director of SSDP, to deflect attention from the strong criticism he's received from financial-aid counselors, as well as hundreds of students.  Meanwhile, drug arrests continue to increase: In 2000, there were 11,276 at U.S.  colleges.  Penn State led the nation in on-campus drug arrests with 175; Of those, 116 originated in dorms.  By contrast, the 26,000 on-campus liquor arrests in 2009 didn't affect aid. 

Given the GOP's strong drug-hawk stance, Massachusetts Rep.  Barney Frank, who supports repeal, despairs of any drug reform in the House this year.  But Heller - who carved a notch on his belt when the Capitol Hill paper Roll Call said Souder was "ducking a debate" with him - says he has a few surprises up his sleeve for spotlighting the issue during Souder's campaign for re-election.