Members of Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), who gathered in Manchester, New Hampshire earlier this month, collected commitments from four current Democratic presidential candidates to repeal the drug provisions of the Higher Education Act (HEA). Speaking at the New England College Convention, which during election years provides college students with a platform to address presidential candidates, Gen. Wesley Clark, Gov. Howard Dean, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, and Rep. Dennis Kucinich announced their support for repealing the provisions. Less favorable were the positions of the two big winners in the Iowa caucuses. Sen. John Kerry said that he supports a partial repeal of the drug provision while Sen. John Edwards declined to take a position.

The drug provision of the HEA, enacted in 1998, denies financial aid to students with a drug conviction on their record. The Department of Education reports that more than 124,000 students have lost or been denied financial aid since the provision's enactment.

"I think it was important for the Drug Policy Alliance to be at the convention to help show students that drug policy reform is not just a ‘student issue,’” said Leah Rorvig, Publications Associate with the Alliance. “Our presence assured people that the drug-policy reform movement is supported by many Americans, not just young people.”

Coinciding with the New England College Convention, SSDP held its national conference in New Hampshire. SSDP, a national organization with over 200 college and high school chapters, recently announced that it has hired Scarlett Swerdlow, co-founder of the SSDP chapter at the University of California-Berkeley, as the organization’s new national director. “SSDP’s strength is that we have a strong organization in Washington and an amazing grassroots network spread throughout the country,” Swerdlow told the Alliance. SSDP and the Alliance are part of the coalition working to reform HEA and restore federal loans to all.