Choose Responsibility

A new Associated Press study, announced yesterday, has revealed that 157 college-age people (aged 18 to 23) drank themselves to death between 1999 and 2005, and that the number of alcohol-poisoning deaths per year rose from 18 in 1999 to 35 in 2005.  Interestingly, 83 of the people who died were under the legal drinking age of 21. 

Additional analysis revealed that college students are more likely to die from binge drinking-related alcohol poisoning than non-college students, and that freshmen are most at risk during their first semester at college.  With the legal drinking age set at 21, people (especially underage drinkers) are dying from binge drinking, and the number of deaths is continuing to climb due to the common mentality of “if you’re under 21 and someone’s got alcohol, you’ve got to drink it, because you never know when somebody’s going to have it again.”   

Some colleges have begun to adopt programs to educate students about responsible drinking—an important first step that will hopefully have some good consequences in the future.  Regardless, this new study really points out a vital question:  Is 21 working?

Brian Threet was not a big drinker, but one night of heavy drinking – a seemingly normal event in the life of a college student — was one too many. Brian, a 20-year-old student at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, lost his life to alcohol – not as a result of drinking and driving, but because of excessive alcohol consumption itself. 

 The drinking environment that led to Brian’s tragic death was risky, underground, and unfortunately, all too common in college settings. America’s youth needs to change its attitude towards alcohol, and we need to provide them with the means of doing so.

From ‘Toga’ to ’Dirty Professor/Naughty Schoolgirl’ to ‘Sports Pros/Hoes,’ sexually-charged themed parties are growing in number and visibility on college campuses. The behavior of young women at these functions is particularly noticeable, unlike their clothing, as they dance scantily clad and drink to excess. The dangerous combination of revealing dress, assumed character, and risky drinking was the subject of a recent study conducted by San Diego State University and the University of Michigan. Researchers found that themed parties represent one of a few places where women outdrink men. The resulting loss of inhibition, coupled with revealing and attention-grabbing costumes, and a parade of bare skin, pose problems for the safety and well-being of young women.

 Not only do such parties promote the submissive role of the female, but they are also frequently coupled with competitive drinking. An associated finding of the study, which observed 1,304 students at 66 college parties over three semesters,  suggests that parties with drinking games result in higher blood alcohol levels.

Binge drinking is widely acknowledged as a concern amongst young adults; however, its consequences are exacerbated when intertwined with sexualized themes and costume, particularly amongst young women. Themed parties, often thought to be controversial but hardly harmful, deserve campus-wide discussion and more critical examination.

As our nation’s colleges and universities continue to wrestle with campus alcohol policy — either strictly enforcing Legal Age 21 or turning a blind eye (both options leading to dangerous, underground, and off-campus drinking) — it is refreshing to see productive steps being taken to produce a safer drinking climate on-campus. We applaud the University of Vermont’s efforts to create a campus pub, which will generate an environment where alcohol accompanies, rather than determines, the activity. While the majority of UVM’s students still fall below the age of 21 and would not be served liquor in such a venue, the university has nevertheless committed itself to cultivating a more sensible campus attitude towards alcohol.

Ideally, such a venue would accommodate all college students above the age of eighteen, as everyone would benefit from access to a space defined by moderate and sensible drinking. We therefore strongly disagree with the with the editorial comment made by the Burlington Free Press:

Lowering the drinking age to 18 is not the answer because in part it would make alcohol more easily accessible to high schoolers and because of the drinking-and-driving issue.

We are firmly committed to an 18-year old drinking age that exists within a greater program of cultural and educational change. In lowering the drinking age, our intent is not to increase the prevalence of alcohol in the lives of those below the age of majority. Widely-respected laws galvanize citizens to action, breed communal enforcement, and justify more severe penalties for individuals who choose to violate them. If we agree that 18-year old adults have the right to consume alcohol in a safe setting, then we can create necessary safeguards to prevent the transfer of alcohol to their younger peers.

“Is the 21 Year-Old Drinking Age Working?”
Panel Discussion at the University of Vermont

September 20, 12:30-1:30, Frank Livak Ballroom at the Davis Center

Sponsored by the Center for Health and Wellbeing and Choose Responsibility
Refreshments will be provided

Have you always thought of the drinking age as a settled question? Think again! Come join in an open panel discussion of the issues surrounding the 21 year-old drinking age. In place for more than two decades, the 21 year-old drinking age has had profound effects on young adults, and on college and university communities across the country. This discussion will highlight the arguments on both sides of the question. Panelists include Jay Taylor ‘10, UVM police chief Gary Margolis, executive director of MADD Massachusetts, and former Middlebury College President and director of Choose Responsibility. Vermont Cynic editor Austin Danforth ‘08 will moderate the panel. Please come prepared with your questions and opinions on this important policy question.

We hope to see you there! Contact the [CR] office at 802-398-2024 or email info@chooseresponsibility.org if you have questions about the event.

The New York Times reported on August 4th that two Rider University officials and three fraternity members were charged with aggravated hazing in the March death of a freshmen fraternity pledge. Gary DeVercelly, an 18 year-old freshman from Long Beach, CA, died on March 30 after a night of drinking as part of a fraternity initiation ritual.  When DeVercelly died, his Blood Alcohol Content was 0.426–a level at which an individual will be completely unconscious, have depressed reflexes, impaired respiratory and circulatory function, and will be near death.  He had consumed more than half of a bottle of flavored vodka along with his fraternity brothers.

This tragic case represents the first time that university employees have been charged directly in an alcohol related incident.  Neither the dean of students or Greek life coordinator were present at the fraternity house on March 30 nor were they directly responsible for providing the alcohol that was served at the party.  The three students charged, who are all over 21, were present at the party that led to DeVercelly’s death.

A humorous article in this week’s Chronicle of Higher Education presents a new approach for getting at the impervious problem of collegiate binge drinking:

“Tame attempts to address the problem — alcohol-counseling meetings, intensified training of resident counselors, and SWAT-team sweeps through the dorms — clearly have failed to deal with this intractable problem.

“We are encouraged, then, by news of efforts to think outside the box, to implement radical solutions to a radical problem. Leading the way is tiny Lucifer College in Minnesota. As Lucifer’s dean told us, “What we need to do is to make binge drinking unfashionable. And there’s one foolproof way to do that: We have to get the faculty involved.”

“To wit, this year Lucifer will begin sending faculty members into dorms to bartend beer bashes, while students will be invited to faculty cocktail parties, where they will be encouraged to drink in the company of their professors. Preliminary studies suggest that the sight of doddering septuagenarians with gin blossoms on their nostrils, sloshing martinis on their bow ties and tweed jackets while holding forth about Cicero, can reduce student consumption of alcohol dramatically.”

The article, which was written by two Amherst College professors, goes on to describe a campus culture where courses on alcohol are incorporated across the curriculum, where professors attend students parties, and where binge drinking has become so unpopular that the bars in town have been forced to stop serving beer.

While farcical, some lessons may be learned from this account of fictional Lucifer College. At many colleges and universities, faculty members are barred from gatherings with students–even those older than 21–involving alcohol. Where professors were once able to interact with students socially and model responsible behavior around alcohol at departmental and course-related functions, this type is interaction has effectively ceased. It has been replaced by a campus culture marked by a disconnect between faculty and students and a general wariness on the part of faculty to interact in student life outside the classroom. Students confine their drinking–more intense now than it was two or three decades ago–to dorm rooms, frat houses, and off-campus parties.

The argument for an 18 year-old drinking age is beginning to spread. Choose Responsibility was featured in the student newspaper Indiana University. Promisingly, the chief of campus police Jerry Minger was quoted as saying “I am not a big advocate of anything that would create more drinking, but I applaud the fact that (the proposal) has (alcohol) education built in.”

While we would question whether this would actually create any more binge drinking than is actually occurring, we believe that the when looking at the full proposal, the benefits outweigh the possible detriments.

While the Indiana Article is in hard copy, look forward to two more articles in the Vermont Cynic and the Daily Free Press of Boston University later this week.

If you see other recent news articles let us know!

As of today, Choose Responsibility’s full website is up and functioning. Check it out! We hope it will be your go-to place for information on the drinking age and alcohol use in America.

Contact Scott or me if you have any questions, would like more information about [CR], or are looking for a way to get involved.

This past week the Columbia University’s Center for Alcohol and Substance Abuse (CASA), headed by the former Secretary of Health Joseph Califano Jr., released a report on the state of alcohol and drug use on the college level. The full, text can be found here. Though this is not the first CASA report on the subject of college student substance abuse, it does appear, at least by first glance, to be more broadly accepted as legitimate scholarship in the field. The previous study released by CASA caught the attention of several major scholars and media outlets cooking its statistics to inflate the crisis of college drinking. Here’s a brief review of that criticism.

In my initial read of the CASA report titled, Wasting the Best and Brightest, I had very little trouble with their statistics. They are, in short, expected and not substantially different from other sources. In short, CASA reports that close to 50% of college students report abusing alcohol (binge drinking), illicit drugs, or prescription drugs. Previous research (2001) say binge drinking levels are about 40%. The way CASA compiles the all rates of abuse into one figure it is easy to mistake that figure for 25% increase in the rate of binge drinking (from 40 to 50 percent) in the past 5 years. That is definitely not the case. However, I do find it difficult to believe that 10% of the college population abuses illicit or prescription drugs but are not guilty of binge drinking. It’s possible, but rather unlikely. The take away point of all of this? The headlining statistic of their report, may not be as high as they report. It’s not the end of the world but if someone has the time it is definitely worth investigating in greater detail.

The other striking thing about the CASA report is the disconnect between the report itself and the accompanying statement by its director Joe Califano. The report proper is written well, and reflects the staid discussion of findings and recommendations that is expected from a college-funded study. That language is sharply contrasted by the rhetoric of Califano’s opening statement. “Too many [college presidents, deans, and trustees] assume a Pontius Pilate posture, leaving the problem in the hands of the students.” How that caustic attack on college administrators is supposed to solve the problem of abuse on college campuses is lost on this reader. The comparison is foolish, if not impudent.