Marijuana and college students - please call your Congressman

Marijuana and college students - please call your Congressman


The House of Representatives is voting on a bill that would restore financial aid to students with drug convictions. Call Congress TODAY!

1) MAKE THE CALL: Dial the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. When the operator answers, give them your home address and ask to be connected with your representative's office.

2) SPEAK YOUR MIND: When the receptionist in your representative's office answers the phone, politely say something like: "My name is [NAME] and I live in [CITY]. When the House revises the Higher Education Act soon, I hope that my representative will make sure to get rid of the harmful law that takes away financial aid from college students with drug convictions. This law causes more, not less, drug abuse by blocking access to education." (If you call after 5pm EST, you may have to leave a voice message.)

3) SPREAD THE WORD: Click "Reply To Poster", select all the text and HTML in the window that opens and copy it. Then open a new bulletin, paste the text in, and post.

4) PITCH IN: Campaigns are expensive! Please make a donation.

Background:

Since the year 2000, more than 200,000 students have lost college aid just because they have drug convictions. Congress is set to reconsider this harmful and unfair penalty very soon, and Students for Sensible Drug Policy needs your help to convince legislators to repeal it.

In the next few days the Higher Education Act reauthorization will be introduced in the House Education & Labor Committee, and is expected to move to the House floor shortly thereafter. Because of this, we need you to call your U.S. House representative today, and ask him or her to repeal the ban on financial aid for students with drug convictions. Just follow the steps above. It's that easy.

Since the Senate passed HEA reauthorization without repealing the Aid Elimination Penalty, it is imperative that constituents send a strong message to members of the House that denying financial aid for college does nothing to deter drug use in schools, and only causes more drug abuse.

And if you have not yet sent a letter to your member of Congress about this issue, please do so today by visiting
http://www.SchoolsNotPrisons.com/help/

Repealing the HEA Aid Elimination Penalty is supported by a coalition of over 500 groups, including the leading organizations in education, treatment, financial aid, civil liberties, civil rights, religion, and law. And just last week the New York Times editorialized in favor of repealing this penalty (story posted below).

Please do your part to restore financial aid eligibility to thousands of students with drug convictions by calling your U.S. House representative today.

Many thanks for your support,


Tom Angell
Government Relations Director
Students for Sensible Drug Policy
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/02/opinion/02fri4.html

Angela Goodhope
Field Director
Citizens for Responsible Crime Policy
http://www.responsiblecrimepolicy.org
(406) 493-0425


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