Worthy Petition Dear friends, We at the Drug Reform Coordination Network are writing today to ask you to take two short minutes to raise your voice to Congress on an issue of great importance. The Higher Education Act of 1998, signed into law last fall, includes a provision that delays or denies all federal financial aid eligibility for any drug conviction, no matter how minor. Regardless of how you feel about drugs or the drug laws, we hope you'll agree that cutting off access to educational opportunity will be counterproductive and detrimental to the future of tens of thousands of young people and to our nation as a whole, and is an unnecessary and vindictive second punishment leveled against people who have already paid whatever price the criminal justice system demands. Please take a few moments right now to fill out our online Higher Education Act Reform Petition, calling on Congress to enact H.R. 1053, a bill that would repeal the HEA drug provision and restore judge's discretion. Please visit http://www.RaiseYourVoice.com to sign the petition and learn more about the HEA drug provision and how and why students and a wide range of national organizations, including the ACLU, NAACP and the United States Students Association, are organizing to oppose it. Our petition will send a letter from your e-mail address to YOUR U.S. Representative and two Senators. Again, the web site is: http://www.RaiseYourVoice.com Don't let the war on drugs become a war on education! Sign the petition, and then take a minute to visit the "Tell Your Friends" page on RaiseYourVoice or to forward this or your own note to your friends and to appropriate mailing lists and forums. Here are some reasons the HEA drug provision is wrong: * Judges already have the power to rescind financial aid eligibility as individual cases warrant. The HEA drug provision removes that discretion. * The vast majority of Americans convicted of a drug offense are convicted of non-violent, low-level possession. * The HEA drug provision represents a penalty levied only on the poor and the working class; wealthier students will not have the doors of college closed to them for want of financial aid. * The HEA drug provision will also have a disparate impact on different races. African Americans, for example, who comprise 13% of the population and 13% of all drug users, account for more than 55% of those convicted of drug charges. * No other class of offense carries automatic loss of financial aid eligibility. * Access to a college education is the surest route to the mainstream economy and a crime-free life. For further information on the HEA reform campaign, visit http://www.RaiseYourVoice.com and click on "Why HEA Reform?" And visit http://www.u-net.org to learn more about the student HEA reform campaign and how to get involved! Visit DRCNet's web site at http://www.drcnet.org for much more information on the impact of the drug war on society.
