Action Alert: HEA Campaign Entering New Stage -- Your Letters and Phone Calls Needed! 2/13/04

Drug War Chronicle, recent top items

more...

recent blog posts "In the Trenches" activist feed

SUBSCRIBE TODAY!!!

As you may know, DRCNet, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, and a wide range of education, civil rights, religious, drug policy reform and other groups have long campaigned against a 1998 amendment to the Higher Education Act that delays or denies federal financial aid to anyone convicted of a drug offense, no matter how minor. More than 128,000 would-be students have been adversely affected by this provision. H.R. 685, a bill in the US House of Representatives to repeal the HEA drug provision, has the support of 65 Representatives, and six presidential candidates have spoken out for its repeal as well.

Our battle has recently entered a new stage. The Higher Education Act is itself in the midst of reauthorization, making this a particularly critical moment for working on this issue. Also, our coalition has mounted a major new effort to launch the repeal effort into the Senate, after previously focusing only on the House of Representatives. Finally, responding to growing support for repeal of the drug provision, its sponsor, notorious drug warrior Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), has offered a proposal to scale the law back so that it only applies to people who were in school at the time they committed their offense. While he has brought up this reform previously, this time it is particularly likely to become law.

While the Souder reform will help some number of people and represents an important partial victory for the students and others working on this issue, only full repeal can adequately address the education, discrimination and other serious concerns that members of our coalition have about the HEA drug provision. For all these reasons, we are asking you to take a moment right now to mark this new stage of the campaign by contacting your US Representative and your two US Senators -- use our web site at http://www.RaiseYourVoice.com to do so online -- and to follow up with a phone call to them tomorrow, Friday February 13, or as soon thereafter as you can.

IF YOU USE OUR WEB SITE AT http://www.RaiseYourVoice.com TO CONTACT CONGRESS, WE WILL BE ABLE TO SEND YOU A CUSTOMIZED E-MAIL WITH THEIR NAMES AND DIRECT PHONE NUMBERS. YOU CAN ALSO REACH THEM VIA THE CONGRESSIONAL SWITCHBOARD AT (202) 224-3121. When you are done, please forward this alert to your family and friends or use the tell-a-friend form that we have made available on http://www.RaiseYourVoice.com online.

Also, we and our campaign partners at Students for Sensible Drug Policy will be sending you a special bulletin next week outlining our strategy for advancing the full repeal cause, announcing a NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION this April, and letting you know what students and non-students alike can do to help. You can start getting ready by visiting http://www.RaiseYourVoice.com for extensive information about the issue and resources for getting involved in the campaign, including our newly-updated student and non-student activist packets.

Some talking points for your phone calls:

  • The vast majority of Americans convicted of drug offenses are convicted of nonviolent, 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 to financial aid.
  • The HEA drug provision has a disparate impact on different races. African Americans, for example, comprise 13% of the population and 13% of all drug users, but account for more than 55% of those convicted of drug possession charges.
  • Access to a college education is the surest route to the mainstream economy and a crime-free life.
Again, visit http://www.RaiseYourVoice.com to write to Congress and get involved in the campaign!

-- END --
Link to Drug War Facts
Please make a generous donation to support Drug War Chronicle in 2007!          

PERMISSION to reprint or redistribute any or all of the contents of Drug War Chronicle (formerly The Week Online with DRCNet is hereby granted. We ask that any use of these materials include proper credit and, where appropriate, a link to one or more of our web sites. If your publication customarily pays for publication, DRCNet requests checks payable to the organization. If your publication does not pay for materials, you are free to use the materials gratis. In all cases, we request notification for our records, including physical copies where material has appeared in print. Contact: StoptheDrugWar.org: the Drug Reform Coordination Network, P.O. Box 18402, Washington, DC 20036, (202) 293-8340 (voice), (202) 293-8344 (fax), e-mail [email protected]. Thank you.

Articles of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of the DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.

Issue #324, 2/13/04 Victory for Hemp! Federal Judges Reject DEA Effort to Ban Hemp Foods | DRCNet Interview: Chuck Thomas and Troy Dayton, Interfaith Drug Policy Initiative | Sweet Home Alabama: Marijuana Legalization Advocate Convicted on Pot Charge in Kafkaesque Trial -- Appeal Filed Immediately | Action Alert: HEA Campaign Entering New Stage -- Your Letters and Phone Calls Needed! | Newsbrief: Legalization Talk in Trinidad | Newsbrief: Brit Police Chief Says Legalize Heroin, Irks Other Cops | Newsbrief: Australian Federal Government Issues Threat to Stop New Safe Injection Sites | Newsbrief: Prohibitionist Sweden Sees Drug Deaths Climb | Newsbrief: Philadelphia Drug War Reality Tour Hits the Airwaves, Internet | Newsbrief: This Week's Corrupt Cops Story | Newsbrief: US Senate to Consider Lifting Buprenorphine Restrictions | Ohio Patients Network Art Contest | UCSF Seeking Patients for Medical Marijuana Research | Offer and Appeal: New StoptheDrugWar.org Ink Stamps and Strobe Lights -- DRCNet Needs Your Support in 2004 | The Reformer's Calendar

This issue -- main page
This issue -- single-file printer version
Drug War Chronicle -- main page
Chronicle archives
Out from the Shadows HEA Drug Provision Drug War Chronicle Perry Fund DRCNet en Español Speakeasy Blogs About Us Home
Why Legalization? NJ Racial Profiling Archive Subscribe Donate DRCNet em Português Latest News Drug Library Search
special friends links: SSDP - Flex Your Rights - IAL - Drug War Facts

StoptheDrugWar.org: the Drug Reform Coordination Network (DRCNet)
1623 Connecticut Ave., NW, 3rd Floor, Washington DC 20009 Phone (202) 293-8340 Fax (202) 293-8344 [email protected]