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We can now add to our long and growing list of drug war grievances that this terrible crusade has become a fully functional army recruitment tool. The U.S. Military has changed its rules to make it easier for drug offenders to enlist. Meanwhile, the aid elimination penalty of the Higher Education Act denies federal financial aid to students with drug convictions. That's right, folks. The federal government thinks drug users don't belong in college, but has no problem sending them to die in Iraq.

Our friends at Students for Sensible Drug Policy have a great new video explaining the absurdity of all this:

Of course, we support the U.S. Military's new hiring policy. Past drug use should never be a factor in assessing a person's qualifications. But making it harder for drug offenders to go to school, while making it easier for them to join the army, is shockingly barbaric and hypocritical.

One can only hope that this bizarre situation may expose the fraudulent logic by which drug offenders are denied college aid to begin with. After all, military service is widely considered an honorable profession; one which requires great courage, character, and intelligence. The very notion that past drug users can serve their country in combat destroys the myth that these Americans are somehow handicapped because they took drugs.

Now that the U.S. government has acknowledged this principle in one self-serving context, it bears a powerful moral obligation to examine and abolish other forms of discrimination against drug users. Freedom, however one may choose to define it, cannot be defended so long as we arbitrarily injure and obstruct our fellow citizens over such petty indiscretions.

I don't completely disagree with this new law. But it does need to be revised. The testing should be done at different intervals in the pregnancy, not after the baby is born. What good does that do, the damage is already done by then. My baby was taken from me 24 hours after she was born. She was perfect, not addicted to anything, a good healthy weight, and no problems. Yet I was still robbed of hospital photo's, the braclet, all the certificates, and everthing that should go into her baby book, all because I smoked a little pot while I was pregnant. So now I will have to explain to her why her picture doesn't match the rest of the kids' and why she has blank pages in her book. I still don't have custody of her even though she is in my care, partially, I'm not allowed to be left alone with her. I have never done anything to hurt any of my children, and I've had 3 others, not to mention the ones that I misscarried, or buried.