The law was intended to reduce drug use, but it causes more by kicking students out of school, which is irrational. |
These things tend to move forward quite slowly. |
This is a huge victory. We're very excited. |
This law only affects students who are doing well in school, since there are already minimum GPA requirements to receive financial aid. So, if a student is wasting all their time with drugs and not studying or going to class, they're going to lose their aid anyway. |
We basically say the law is unconstitutional because it punishes students twice for the same crime. Taking away access to education is not only illogical, but it is illegal. |
We don't think access to education should be lost as collateral damage in the war on drugs. |
We have a real shot at getting this law stricken from the books. |
We have been working to repeal this law for the past eight years. We are lobbying Congress, but Congress has not been that responsive to student demands. We [will] take it to court and get rid of the law that way. |
We think allowing hard-working and determined students to get a degree and enter the work force will decrease drug use among college students. |
We want the drug conviction question taken off the financial aid application. |
We wanted a state-by-state breakdown of how many students were being affected by the law from different areas. They said we couldn't get the information for free because it might lead to drug legalization and somehow, our nonprofit organization could profit from [being given the records]. |
We were legally qualified to get the information for free. They said they couldn't give us the information, because it would lead to drug legalization. |
We've been trying to repeal this law ever since it was passed in 1998. |
We've seen mandatory minimums enacted and increased and it's really had little impact on drug use or sales. The impact that it does have is it is destroying state budgets. The more money that we have dumped into prison, the less we have for higher education. |
While the law is aimed at reducing drug abuse it actually causes more drug abuse in our society by blocking access to education and also in that way it hurts our country's economic productivity. |