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Post-Secondary School

Attention Students: Start a SAFER Campus Campaign This Spring

The SAFER Campuses Initiative is off to an early start for Spring 2011, and we want to help you get a campaign going on your campus.

We're already helping several campuses get their efforts off the ground, and we'll continue to help them and others work to change campus policies and spark public debate about the relative safety of marijuana compared to alcohol.

The goal of the SAFER Campuses Initiative is to work with students at as many schools as possible, so please contact us today to let us know if you are interested in working with us on your campus or at one near you.

Whether you're interested in running a full-blown SAFER campaign, or simply taking action when opportunities present themselves, we want to hear from you!  We will be able to provide you with a great deal of support, including instructions, materials, and direct assistance.

The SAFER movement began just five years ago on two college campuses in Colorado, and since then it has spread across the nation. Now, students at more than a dozen schools, including five of the 15 largest in the nation, have adopted SAFER referendums, calling for reductions in campus penalties for marijuana use so they're no greater than those for alcohol use. At a few of those schools, SAFER campus leaders are now working with administrators to develop and implement policy changes that reflect the student votes. Perhaps most importantly, these efforts have generated significant news coverage and discussion at the campus, local, and even national level.

If you're interested in working with SAFER on your campus or on one that's nearby, please take a minute to check out the SAFER Campuses Initiative website, then send us an e-mail and answer the following questions about yourself and your school so we can get things rolling.

1. What school are you currently attending or interested in working at?

2. Are you a member of a student organization working on marijuana policy reform? If so, which one? If not, are you interested in potentially starting one? (NOTE: being part of or starting a student organization is not required, but can be very helpful.)

3. Anything else that might be of note? A personal story? A particular skill or work/volunteer experience?

empowered by Salsa

Drug Prohibition War Prompts Text Message Alert System at UT-Brownsville

The University of Texas-Brownsville/Texas Southmost College is planning an emergency text messaging system as part of its strategy to alert students and faculty to dangers amid the drug prohibition war raging across the Rio Grande. One recent intelligence alert had campus police knocking on dorm doors in the middle of the night to warn students to stay indoors.

SSDP HEA Week of Action

Within the next few months, the US House of Representatives will decide whether or not to continue denying financial aid to students with drug convictions. This is our chance to take this awful law off the books once and for all. We're being counted on by nearly 200,000 students who have been affected by the law, and by countless more who will be affected if we don't repeal it.

Drug Dealing on Frat Row - Profits & Losses

Progressive Drug Educator Sheldon Norberg will deliver a specially commissioned presentation focusing on Harm Reduction in the Greek community at UCLA. See http://www.SheldonNorberg.com for more in

Breaking: House Committee Votes to Eliminate Financial Aid Loss Penalty for Drug Possessors

Read about the partial repeal of Souder's law included in their student loans bill by the House Education and Labor Committee -- of which Souder is a member -- in Souder's hometown newspaper. This is the third time Congress has moved to scale the law back -- the first two times Souder supported the changes, this time he didn't. Of course this is just one stage of the process, but leadership wouldn't have moved it forward if they didn't think they could make it stick. We've been working on this issue since 1999 when the law first passed. Exciting times. The work will go on, or course, to fully repeal the law for everyone. Look for more news on this soon.
press conference we organized on this issue in 2002
, for the
Coalition for Higher Education Act Reform, attended by ten
members of Congress

News Release: Will SDSU Drug Bust Coverage Raise the Critical Questions?

Will SDSU's Drug Bust Reduce Drug Availability on Campus in the Future? Advocates Urge Media to Look Beyond the Surface, Ask Critical Questions About Raid's Long-Term Implications for Drug Trade (or Lack Thereof)
In the wake of a major drug bust at San Diego State University, in which 96 people including 75 students were arrested on drug charges as part of "Operation Sudden Fall," advocates are asking media outlets to go beyond the surface to probe whether drug laws and enforcement actually reduce the availability of drugs. "Cocaine was banned in 1914, and marijuana in 1937," said David Borden, executive director of StoptheDrugWar.org, "and yet these drugs are so widely available almost a century later that college students can be hauled away 75 at a time for them. That is the very definition of policy failure." Borden, who is also executive editor of Drug War Chronicle, a major weekly online publication, continued: "Since 1980, when the drug war really started escalating under the Reagan administration, the average street price of cocaine has dropped by a factor of five, when adjusted for purity and inflation. (1) Given that the strategy was to increase drug prices, in order to then reduce the demand, that failure has to be called spectacular." Drug arrests in the US number close to 1.5 million per year, but to little evident effect as such data suggests. Ironically, San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis painted a compelling picture of the drug war's failure in her own quote given to the Los Angeles Times: "This operation shows how accessible and pervasive illegal drugs continue to be on our college campuses and how common it is for students to be selling to other students." "While SDSU's future drug sellers will probably avoid sending such explicit text messages as the accused in this case did, it's doubtful that they will avoid the campus for very long," Borden said. "In fact the replacements are undoubtedly already preparing to take up the slack. By September if not sooner, the only remaining evidence that 'Operation Sudden Fall' ever happened will be the court cases and the absence of certain people from the campus." "Instead of throwing away money and law enforcement time on a policy that doesn't work, ruining lives in the process, Congress should repeal drug prohibition and allow states to create sensible regulations to govern drugs' lawful distribution and use. At a minimum, the focus should be taken off enforcement," said Borden.
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1. Data from DEA STRIDE drug price collection program, adjusted for inflation using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index figures. Further information is available upon request.