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<p>I don’t think you deserve to have your aid revoked and it’s your choice to risk it. Quite simply, it’s the law and if you choose to break the law I would only expect you to accept the consequences. If law-abiding tax-paying citizens do not choose to support this activity, that is our right. I think we have many other deserving and underfunded causes that need attention.</p>
<p>Excuse me, but I didn’t make the law. I do think people should follow it. I have no dog in this fight other than a desire to see students make careful choices and not risk their futures and cause themselves and their families alot of unneccesary anquish. You MAY graduate if you don’t end up convicted and losing your aid. You MAY enter a specialized field if you can find an employer who doesn’t require pre-employment drug screening. I don’t know if you’re a “perfect example of higher education’s function”, but it’s pretty clear that there is something lacking. Your line of reasoning seems flawed and obscure…perhaps a result of your activities in the privacy of your own home?</p>
<p>Btw, if you can afford to smoke dope every day then couldn’t you be picking up more of the tab for your own education? Because since you obviously don’t need the help and don’t care to play be the rules, I’d love to see more of my tax dollars devoted to helping the uninsured, developing cures for cancer and Alzheimer’s, etc…</p>
<p>This is a very good law and I do hope it passes. You should not lose your federal aid for smoking a joint recreationally.</p>
<p>Edit: Thank you, UC Berkley. I’m tired of the stupid stoner sterotype. Why, while maintaing an A grade point average in a demanding major, while working 20 hours of week, should I lose my aid for simply smoking a small amount of marijuana while it is perfectly legal for the much hated frat brothers to party 5/7 nights of the week and get a 2.8? I guarantee you, these students will do much less with their education than me. Yet you want to cut off my funding?</p>
<p>sk8rmom’s posts illustrate the absurd circular logic at the core of the pro-drug war argument: why are drugs bad? because they are illegal. why are drugs illegal? because they are bad.</p>
<p>Kids, you really need to learn how to google. There have been hosts of studies about THC. Btw, I never said anything about marijuana use, nor do I particularly care if you personally choose to use it. This is a financial aid forum. The fact is that you WILL lose your federal student aid if your are convicted of possessing or selling drugs, including pot, while receiving those funds. As a taxpayer who actively supports federal aid for students, I have the right to my opinion as well. My opinion was formed after years of experience with addicts, many of whom did start with casual pot smoking and, if you look, you will find studies that confirm that teenage drug use does increase the likelihood of more serious addiction problems later on. I cannot remember meeting a single addict over the years that had not started with marijuana. This doesn’t mean that marijuana causes addiction, but there is a psychological boundary that is crossed and my experience is that it made it much easier for them to make the transition to harder drugs. Whether it was due to social relationships, poor judgement, or personality, I cannot say. I’m not saying any of you will experience this but, imo, it is just not worth the risk. An addict’s life is often a horrible, pitiful existence and recovery is very difficult.</p>
<p>Additionally, please do not kid yourselves that people aren’t being killed over pot. Anything illicit with an aggregate value that high is controlled by some pretty scary characters. I would not choose to support the slaughter and servitude of innocent people by buying their product. You may think you’re very bright, liberal and are not hurting anyone else but you are deluding yourselves. People are dying, especially in Mexico and South America where much of the marijuana supply comes from. You should go.</p>
<p>I understand that you have no problem with breaking the law but would urge you to really consider your own future more seriously. Conviction records are serious and will follow you forever. While you’re very quick to judge me, although I have been careful not to judge you, I have not seen any evidence from you that marijuana, or other illegal drugs, are actually good for you or that being convicted of a drug crime will not harm you in other ways. </p>
<p>Btw, it is unlikely that the FDA will reclassify marijuana anytime soon although marinol, a synthetic version is approved for cancer and anorexia treatments. There simply is not any verifiable evidence that marijuana, a drug, has any useful purpose and it will not meet the stringent guidelines applied to every drug distributed legally in the US. Alcohol is not a drug and is not regulated or classified by the FDA. Control of alcohol falls under the ATF.</p>
<p>From the NIH:</p>
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<p>Additional studies on marijuana and health can be found at:
[NIDA</a> - Publications - NIDA Notes - A Collection of Articles That Address Research on Marijuana](<a href=“http://www.drugabuse.gov/NIDA_Notes/NN0058.html]NIDA”>http://www.drugabuse.gov/NIDA_Notes/NN0058.html)</p>
<p>Most rules have arbitrary provisions in them that are not consisitent. I have always felt that the drug penalty was unduly harsh. You can commit murder, rape, assault, steal and get convicted for all of those things but getting snagged on a drug charge will take you out of the running for financial aid. The whole idea of penalties is that they should fit the severity of the crime.</p>
<p>California is a bell weather state and they appear to be planning to balance their budget with new taxes on marijuana — can the federal government be far behind as they need lots of money to cover all of these new programs? This law is perhaps a first shot for decriminalizing marijuana nationally.</p>
<p>Cpt, this rule does not only apply to financial aid. Federal welfare law makes people convicted of drug felonies ineligible for money from Federal block grants for family welfare benefits unless their state has passed a law allowing benefits.</p>
<p>Also, although the original article doesn’t mention it, students who lose their aid under this provision can become eligible earlier than the statutory period by completing a drug rehab program and passing two drug tests.</p>
<p>A few things to think about…
Prisons are now a business, centered on continued incarceration, not rehab; there is so much corruption and criminal/gang influence in some jails that getting drugs isn’t hard if you really want it. It really is a case of the inmates running the prisons.
Politicians need to be honest about the effect of the war on drugs. Making more and more arrests for smaller and smaller crimes should NOT be the goal. The “war” will be won when prevention and successful rehab is more common than strict sentencing.
As far as FA goes, I don’t want to pay for a crook to get grants and loans, either. However, empathy and common sense are key. If a kid gets caught one time with a joint in his/her dorm, s/he should get (at worst) probation, and help if necessary. Give someone a chance to prove their integrity and value to the school community. It’s the only reasonable punishment, considering the amount of drug use on campuses.
If s/he is caught with kilos, or caught multiple times, then it is clear that drugs are more important than school, and the aid should go elsewhere.<br>
Personally, I agree that marijuana should be decriminalized, but I respect the fact that people have differing views and want control over how their hard earned dollars are spent.</p>
<p>I think what makes much much more sense is require random drug testing as a condition of finaid, etc if there has been a prior conviction.</p>
<p>I agree that marijuana should be decriminalized and hope that the relatively few students that have been affected by this provision means that most colleges do not arrest kids for smoking a joint. Looking at some on-campus crime statistics for large universities, this appears to be true. Off campus is probably a different ballgame and kids do need to be smart and careful about their activities.</p>
<p>[Kohlberg’s</a> stages of moral development - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohlberg’s_stages_of_moral_development]Kohlberg’s”>Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>I couldn’t ask for a better example of the second stage of morality from sk8rmom. I would ask her to read some ethical and legal theory before she continues to promote an illogical and outdated system of morals based on an authority none of us chose. 200,000 students is quite a large number, that’s 200,000 students that may have to take on a second job to afford their education, or drop out entirely. 1.2% may be small, but it is nothing to laugh at. </p>
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Drug tests are preposterously easy to pass, even if you imbibed the day of your test. Further, there are plenty of widely-available drugs and a widening scope of new, rarer designer drugs that don’t show up on any known drug test at all.</p>
<p>How does it make any logical sense to deny students who have been caught with drugs financial aid? The obvious reason this is ■■■■■■■■ is that smoking a little refer is clearly not bad and anyone who thinks this is so out of whack with society or has their head stuck up their… Deny kids who can still get into school, even though they do these “terrible” things, financial aid, and then expect them to do what with their life? nothing.
The war on drugs is a huge epic joke that clearly can never and will never be won.</p>
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<p>From my understanding, marijuana is the only drug that stays in your system for longer than a weekend. So, kids, if you don’t want to get caught ditch the weed and do some heroin or meth.</p>
<p>Ns, when I said random, I meant no warning. Are you telling me if someone knocks on your door unanncoucned you can beat it? OK, I defer to your greater knowledge.</p>
<p>In a free society, people cannot knock on your door and demand that you submit to a drug test.</p>
<p>Sorgham, I meant in exchange for federal finaid. Rather than being shut out for a year. I respect peoples rights, but I would give people the choice.</p>
<p>^</p>
<p>Or you could, you know, ditch the connection between drug use and rescinding financial aid altogether, since it’s stupid.</p>
<p>kayf: Probably not, but if I have things set up correctly I can. All it would take is to take a B supplement every morning and drink a lot of water. If the testers show up you can just say that you have no need to urinate but you’ll drink right now so that you will and then when you do take your test, your urine will be so dilute that it won’t matter. You’ve also failed to address my point regarding designer drugs. JWH-018, for instance, is a cannabis-like substance that is far cheaper than cannabis per dose and doesn’t show up on any drug test. How would you account for that, even if random drug testing wasn’t unconstitutional?</p>
<p>I know some very bright kids who use pot as a recreational activity.
Weed isn’t illegal because its ‘bad’ for you. In fact, if you want to look it up, weed is a weak drug, in terms based upon addiction, tolerance, and effects.</p>
<p>On the other side, alcohol and tobacco are heavy drugs. They are very addictive, build up a tolerance over a shorter period of time than pot, and I would rather put my life on someone driving a car under the effects of pot in a heartbeat compared to someone under the effects of alcohol. </p>
<p>Weed can’t kill alone. You may drive a car under the effects of it and loose your life, but its not from the substance alone. In all of history, no one has died from smoking too much weed at one time. You would need to smoke about your own body weight in weed to die from it. And in any average man, 150lbs. of weed would cost a large fortune. And, its impossible. By the time you smoked an ounce and a half, you would pass out, thus not being able to smoke any more.</p>
<p>As for alcohol…</p>
<p>Yet frat boys are able to get FA when they drink heavily?
Want to know why alcohol is legal? Because when they tried to make it illegal, the whole entire country struck out. Did ANYONE follow those laws? Even law abiding citizens drank when they outlawed alcohol (which yes, they did. A long long time ago). The legal system could not stop it, and in turn removed the law banning alcohol.</p>
<p>Hell, the only reason you have to be 21 to drink alcohol is because of a HIGHWAY act. Drinking ages are a state law, but a federal highway act provides more money to state highways if the drinking age in that state is 21. So, the only reason your teenage son can’t drink legally is because states want more money for highways.</p>
<p>As for pot, its illegal and makes money. Fines are given to people who are caught using weed, and this generates money. Simple as that.</p>
<p>So if you look at it in the big picture, weed is not ‘bad’ for you. The greedy bastards out there we call politicians are just trying to make more money than they already have. </p>
<p>Like my history teacher always said; “All politicians are crooks”</p>