https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/409/katrinabill.shtml

With nearly three million Americans displaced by this summer's hurricanes, many are looking to the federal government for assistance. But because federal law bars federal assistance for anyone ever convicted of a drug offense, thousands of families made destitute by the storms will be denied welfare, food stamps, public housing, and other federal benefits available to hurricane victims. While the exact number of families affected by the law is unknowable, the Drug Policy Alliance reports that "it could be in the tens of thousands."

	Reps. Bobby Scott & Sheila Jackson Lee, with New Orleans evacuee Antoinette Samson

Backed by more than 80 drug treatment, civil rights, and public health organizations, a handful of Democratic congressional progressives Thursday introduced a bill to exempt hurricane victims from those laws for three years. The "Elimination of Barriers for Katrina Victims Act" is sponsored by Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA), Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX). The bill would make those thousands of hurricane victims with past drug convictions and their families eligible for federal aid to start their lives over.

Among public interest groups supporting the measure are the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry, American College of Mental Health Administration, Drug Policy Alliance Network, League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), NAACP, NAADAC: The Association for Addiction Professionals, National Association of Blacks in Criminal Justice, National Association of People with AIDS (NAPWA-US), National Black Police Association, National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, and the National Urban League.

According to the Government Accountability Office (GA0), which last month issued a report on the impact of laws denying federal benefits to drug offenders, 32 states have laws exempting some or all drug offenders from the ban on welfare (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families), while 35 had modified the ban on food stamps. Louisiana, with the majority of hurricane victims, allows drug offenders to be eligible for such programs only if a year has passed since their convictions. In Mississippi and Texas, total bans remain in place.

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