Bill Would Stop Kicking Kids Out of College for Marijuana

Since 1998, U.S. college students relying on federal financial aid to help pay their tuition have put their access to education at risk every time they brought a joint to their lips. That year’s version of the Higher Education Act made it so that anybody with a conviction for possessing or selling an illegal drug would automatically lose their aid eligibility for anywhere from one year to indefinitely.

While the penalty has since been scaled back so that it no longer applies to past offenses and only covers people who get convicted while they are in school and receiving aid at the time of their offense, it still strips access to education from students busted on campus with a small amount of cannabis.

But under a new Congressional bill introduced last week, the penalty would no longer apply to misdemeanor marijuana possession offenses.

“Nearly half of the population has smoked marijuana at some point in their lives, and now in four states and the District of Columbia, people can do so legally,” Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), lead sponsor of the Fair Access to Education Act of 2016, said in a floor statement. “It is senseless that we would limit a student’s future for any drug offense for which they have served their sentence, and even more senseless that we would do so for an offense for a drug that a majority believes should be legal.”

The current penalty is enforced through a question on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which students must fill out in order to determine their eligibility for federal grants and loans.

The drug conviction question on the federal FAFSA financial aid form.

Blumenauer says the question is “intimidating” and deters some students from applying in the first place, even though …read more

Source:: Weed Feed