If we can get this issue on the forefront for those in higher education, perhaps we can then raise the level of the drug war debate across the country. At any rate, it is nice to see it there, flawed as it is.

Case in point that it's flawed: On the carefully manicured grounds of Stanford University, for example, few students have even heard of it. "To get in here, you have to be pretty high-achieving, and that means that you're probably less likely to get involved with drugs in the first place," says Mark Boucher, a junior and editor of The Stanford Daily. Stanford officials agree. Cynthia A. Hartley, the financial-aid director, says the law "has not had much of an impact here," but declines to provide specifics.

Give me a break! Do those jokers at Stanford really believe that their school, which is (by the way) in very close proximity to UC Berkeley, does not have a drug problem simply because rich kids and people who do well on their SATs get in? Get real. Where there are high-techy brainiacs, there will also be pot--and plenty of it.

I'd bet the folks at Stanford are glad that their administration has so much faith in their abstinence. Maybe the folks in charge would be willing to extend their faith such that nobody is ever investigated for pot on Stanford's campus, eh?

You just stated Congress is unteachable and unreachable. No one will disagree with you. So why are those Congressmen still in Congress? Congress is not a career position, it is a Public Service position considered "at will employment." Those are our tax dollars, not theirs. When we voted for them, we hired them to perform our will, not theirs.

I would like to add that I am a non-traditional student over the age of 40. When I was in my 30's, I applied every year for finacial aid and was turned down every year, including the year I had a gross income of $8,000. I had my 1st child at age 37, and received more finacial aid than I could spend, some of it went back to the fund. This sends a strong message to young females - have a baby and you will get college funding. Real bright laws our Congress has instituted.

Here is what I found so far:

Transcript for Thursday, January 17, 2001


Kim Serafin
Bob Balaban
Jamie Kennedy
Ian McKellan

Bill: Good evening.
Welcome to "Politically Incorrect." Here is our panel for tonight.
Over here, the newly mature Jamie Kennedy.
Award-winning? You won an award?

Jamie: No.

Bill: Okay, I thought that was a lie --
for the two "Scream" movies.

Jamie: Oh, Blockbuster Award.
But it was chipped.

Bill: "Three Kings," "Bowfinger" and now you have a new show Sundays at 8:00 on the WB called "The Jamie Kennedy Experiment." Good for you.
Okay.
Bob Balaban, I saw you on a very funny "Seinfeld" rerun recently.
You are, of course, also an actor and a producer.
Most recently of the very acclaimed drama "Gosford Park." Welcome aboard.
Kim Serafin, you've been here before.
You are a commentator on MSNBC.
And, of course, you also have worked on Rudy Giuliani's Twin Towers Fund.
And, of course, over here we have Sir Ian McKellan.
I'll remember that, Sir.
Oscar-nominated actor and, of course, you are currently Gandolf the Grey in "The Lord Of The Rings." How about that? Give a hand to this panel.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Okay.
Now, we have a British person here today, so I thought we would talk about Prince Harry.
He has been in the news.
He was on the cover of "People" this week because he got caught smoking pot.

[ Light laughter ]

Which, you know, this kid is just obviously a whisker away from losing it all.
And his father, Prince Charles, who has lost it all, took him down to a heroin clinic to see, like, hard-core addicts.
Which I think is so preposterous.
It just shows that in Britain, they do what we do here in America when a kid smokes pot.
First of all, lie.
Start with the lies immediately, that heroin is just one step away from the joint.

[ Laughter ]

Kim: Don't you think, though, this was maybe just a savvy PR strategy, because the royal family has certainly been through its scandals and trials and tribulations, so he saw an opportunity to gain some PR points? By doing this, you see that the British public has been very supportive of and very sympathetic.
And the British press, which are certainly very ruthless --

Bill: So PR is more important than --

Kim: No, I think he helped out his son in the meantime, but at the same time, he scored some PR points.

Bob: No, I think he was getting brownie points for the royal family in an attempt to appear cooler, you know? Perhaps.

Bill: "Cooler"?

Kim: He could have assigned a 24-hour guard to guard Prince Harry, but instead he did something very adult, he said, "Why don't you go for two hours and sit and talk with someone who, if you continue to abuse drugs, that would be the extreme you would get to." It's a preventative measure.

Jamie: Harry, he was tired of William getting all that press for being the sexy one.

[ Light laughter ]

So he needed to do something.
So he took a little toke.
It happens.

Ian: Well, let's get to the facts.
This all happened a year ago when Prince Harry was 16.
He's now 17.

Bill: Oh, really?

Ian: "The News Of The World," the tabloid scandal sheet that took it back to the palace and said, "What about this?" was told, "Go away and prove it to be a fact." They investigated it for one year, and now they have come up and proved it, and Prince Charles has had to admit it all happened.
But, you know, in the U.K., it seemed very much, as in the contexts of the royal family's perpetual attempt to present itself as a thoroughgoing, normal, leading family of the country that sets the standards for the rest of us.
And Prince Charles does come out of it very well, because he's a father in a one-parent family bringing up two teenagers.
He's not immune to the problems of other parents.
94% of 15 to 16-year-old young people in the U.K. drink alcohol.

Bill: To excess.

Ian: 35% of them smoke pot.
So Prince Charles is just like the rest of us, dealing with a familiar problem.
And he's good, because he's true to the tolerance and caring and way over the top, I agree, in suggesting that if you smoke a joint, you're going to end up a heroin addict.
That's ridiculous.

Bill: Yeah.

Kim: Yeah, isn't there something about preventative measures? Like, I remember when I was in elementary school, they used to do an assembly.
They would have a police officer come in, and they would show you handcuffs, and they would show you the inside of a jail cell.
Look, I grew up on Long Island, we didn't have a surge of people from the fifth grade at elementary school committing mass murder.

Ian: Is it going to work? Is it really going to be preventative?

Kim: I think it scares you a little.
Why not?Why not take it to an extreme --

Ian: When Prince Charles was Prince Harry's age, he was found drinking that disgusting drink cherry brandy.

[ Laughter ]

Age 16, in a bar near his school in Scotland.
He still drinks alcohol, 35 years old, and I bet Prince Harry is still going to be smoking pot within five years' time, by which time it will have been decriminalized in the United Kingdom.

Bill: Yeah, they said that 35 years ago, and it still hasn't happened.

Ian: It's inching there.
Police in areas of London --

Bill: In Europe, yeah.

Ian: I'm sorry, I beg your pardon.

Bob: Think of all the gangsters that would be put of businessif we legalized marijuana.
I mean, it would be terrible.
They would go down the drain, these gangsters who go aroundselling it.

Thanks if you can and it's ok if you can't. No problem.

So, if in August you got busted with a joint, everything is OK, but get busted with the same joint in September, and you can kiss your financial aid goodbye. Too bad you did not just commit any violent crime... in that case, your government will pay for your tuition. I'm glad I told them they could shove their money, I'd rather earn my own education.

It could be that the college kids take to the streets in protest over this bill. I wish they would because of the irony of it all. Here in North Carolina they are talking about cutting the college term by two weeks to help with the budget shortfall. We have a billion dollar shortfall here in North Carolina. I still remember the 19.5 billion shortfall in California. College kids there may have some very short sessions next year. That is unless some reasonable person calls up the fact that California spends more on prisons than education and maybe they should work on changing that fact. Who and what are we trying to teach. Millions of reformers have not taught Congressmen that marijuana is medicine. If millions of messages cannot teach Congress a simple fact, why waste money on the less important players in our national well=being.

And if you get busted for a little weed, then your rich or upper middle class white parents will hire a lawyer to make sure that your guaranteed trademarked GOLDEN FUTURE (tm) isn't harmed by your little mistake of judgment, and everyrone works out a way to puniush you without giving you a criminal record.

But if you're black and poor and don't have a lawyer or a socially presumed GOLDEN FUTURE (TM) then you get a conviction to teach you that there are consequences for smoking weed.

Now how can a bill do something that the author didn't intend?

I think the CHE is giving this man a real generous softball here, a free pass from personal responsibility.

The man wrote the bill himself!!!!

How in the hell can he claim it didn't do what he intended???

IDIOT MORON INCOMPETENT LOSER COWARD

any other words that could apply here?