"I think that I deserve to have money and be able to go to school ... I go back home to Elk River, and everybody's doing meth and they're doing coke and all this stuff,'' she said. "I mean, I've never touched it. I look at them, and I think they have a drug problem.''
Joel Johnson, past president of the University of Minnesota Law School's College Republicans, said the law doesn't discriminate.
"It emphasizes what society deems is appropriate behavior,'' said Johnson. "We've said drug use is a bad thing, something we want to deter. This is no more discriminatory than the drug laws themselves.''
Student groups have lobbied Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., to sponsor a Senate bill to eliminate the law. Coleman said he is not interested. In a statement, he said the current law as it stands is "a reasonable approach.''
The current law punishes students with one federal or state possession conviction with a year of lost aid. For a second offense, students lose two years of aid, and a third offense takes away the aid indefinitely. Students convicted of selling drugs lose two years of aid on the first offense, and are permanently ineligible after the second offense.
— Associated Press
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