Puff, Puff, Lie

Slate has the dirt on the interesting problem of denying federal student aid to applicants with drug convictions. It seems that for a while, if you simply left the question blank, you were presumed innocent (many apologies to the suckers who felt honesty was the best policy). Then, for a while, they assumed if you left it blank you must be using, since only drug users would not be able to correctly fill out a simple form. Now they’ve further re-jiggered the rules so you can get aid if your drug problems were pre-college. But if you get busted in college, your aid gets yanked. This is because you should be studying, not doing drugs. The best part of the whole thing: according to Slate, the Dept. of Ed. refused to release the numbers of students who had been denied aid because it might encourage drug legalization. Logic like that is why they are running education policy. If you understood it, you could work for them, too.