Dear Editor, HEA Aid Elimination Penalty senselessly hurts those students most in need. If you or anyone you know has been denied financial aid as a result of a drug conviction, please contact Students for Sensible Drug Policy. This 8-year-old student organization has launched a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the HEA Aid Elimination Penalty, with pro bono legal representation from the ACLU Drug Law Reform Project. SSDP is still seeking additional plaintiffs in this class-action lawsuit. Contact: ssdp@ssdp.org. To keep up to date on the progress of the lawsuit, or to help Students for Sensible Drug Policy identify new plaintiffs, please visit www.ssdp.org/lawsuit. Drinking by college students, ages 18 to 24, contributes to an estimated 1,400 student deaths, 500,000 injuries, and 70,000 cases of sexual assaults or date rapes each year, according to a 2002 study commissioned by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Task Force on College Drinking. SSDP, Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation, and NORML say students should not be punished for making a safer health choice in recreational drug use. Sixty-four percent of University of Texas students urged administrators to reduce penalties for marijuana. Florida State University recently passed their referendum by 60%. "This victory demonstrates that students clearly recognize the truth: Alcohol is simply more harmful – both to the user and to society – than marijuana," said Judie Niskala, UT Campus Coordinator for SAFER Texas. "Not surprisingly, given this truth, they agree it does not make sense to punish an individual more harshly for using the less harmful substance." And it certainly doesn't make sense to add insult to injury by taking away student aid for a safer choice. SSDP also recently reported wining another federal lawsuit in which they sued the Department of Education for refusing to provide the student organization with a state-by-state breakdown of how many students have lost aid due to a drug conviction. The government eventually provided Students for Sensible Drug Policy with incomplete data. When SSDP receives the complete information, the organization plans to release a summary.