(As part of an effort to find students who are currently losing their financial aid eligibility because of drug convictions, our friends at Students for Sensible Drug Policy have put together a viral YouTube video to raise awareness of the law, get supporters to lobby Congress about it, and to let them know about the Perry Fund, DRCNet Foundation's scholarship program that assists students who are in this situation. Scott Morgan blogged about it for us this week, and we reprint his posting here.)

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 US 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 US 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 US 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.