Stories this week

As September approaches, many colleges and universities are making changes to their on-campus alcohol policies to try and stop the flood of early-semester binge drinking by incoming students before it begins: the Richmond Times-Dispatch and the Winston-Salem Journal reported on changes to parental notification policy for alcohol violations at James Madison University and Wake Forest University, and the Des Moines Register outlined changes to tailgating rules at the University of Iowa. Meanwhile, Colby College announced that it will ban all liquor from campus dorms and parties.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed bill AB2486 into law this week. The new law will create civil liability for adults 21 and older who provide alcohol to underage drinkers killed or injured as a result of intoxication. Previous California law “protected adults 21 and up from civil suit if they knowingly provided alcohol that resulted in the injury or death of a young person.”

Speaking of social host legislation, Stephanie Raposo of The Patriot-News crafted a guide for parents that spells out the laws against serving underage drinkers in Pennsylvania. Does her portrait of a typical underage drinking party sound familiar? “Teens jumping out of windows, climbing over fences and running as fast as they can in a panic…”

In other news…

At Health.com, Amanda Gardner outlined a new study that explores the increased risk of stroke and heart attack for older binge drinkers who have high blood pressure.

Police officials and school administrators are gearing up for what some are calling the “first true test” of Iowa City’s recently-passed 21-only bar ordinance – the first weekend students have returned to campus.

The ban comes “more than two years after nearly 20 students were hospitalized for alcohol poisoning following a now-defunct annual tradition called Champagne on the Steps, in which seniors marked the end of classes by drinking on the steps of Colby’s library.”

Colby Dean of Students Jim Terhune said the ban would hopefully lead to safer outcomes for students who choose to drink, since “we don’t have students ending up in the hospital because they’ve had too many beers.” However, some students believe the policy – which bans liquor for all students, regardless of age – is too restrictive and might lead to more underground pre-gaming. What do you think?

“10. Raise taxes on alcohol from the current average of a dime per drink to something closer to a dollar.

11. Make getting drunk (as opposed to drinking) the object of a big negative-advertising campaign. Goal: make being drunk, or having been drunk, something people—especially young people—try to hide, rather than something they brag about.

12. Abolish the age restriction on alcohol.”

Responding to some of his critics in a follow-up post, Kleiman wrote,

“Note that the drinking-age idea was paired with a tenfold increase in alcohol taxes to about a dollar a drink, roughly doubling the retail price of alcohol. That, plus a zero-tolerance policy on drinking and driving for teenagers, would get you most of the benefits of the current 21-year-old MLDA (and lots of benefits the MLDA can’t provide) without making tens of millions of teenagers into scofflaws.  It’s a good general principle that a law that’s widely broken is a bad law, and 90% of American 18-year-olds have sampled alcohol, despite the laws against it.”

What do you think of Kleiman’s proposals? Let us know by leaving your feedback in the comments.

Stories this week:

In case you missed it: Tom Keane made the provocative case for changing alcohol regulations, including the drinking age, in his Sunday essay for the Boston Globe magazine.

Charles Couger’s op-ed in the Lansing State Journal explores the unintended consequences of alcohol prohibition aimed at 18-20 year-olds, which he says lead to dangerous situations for underage drinkers who attempt to evade law enforcement.

Eric Hafner of Red Bank, NJ believes that New Jersey should extend alcohol purchase and consumption privileges to 18-20 year-olds who are non-drivers. What do you think?

In other news…

Rheyanne Weaver, an EmpowHER contributor, compiled a guide for female college students and their parents called “Alcohol Safety for Women in College.” Check it out for up-to-date statistics on binge drinking by female college students and descriptions of some collegiate alcohol education programs.

In Ontario Canada, where the drinking age is 19, local officials have instituted a new policy that intends to cut down on drunk driving by younger drivers. From now on, drivers under the age of 22 with “any measurable blood alcohol concentration above zero will be breaking the law and will have their licenses immediately suspended at the roadside for 24 hours. A $110 fine also will be imposed, under the new provisions, and drivers will be subject to a further license suspension of 30 days, if convicted in court.”

Send us a tip in the comments if we missed something with this week’s news round-up.

“The lesson here is an old one: The law is a poor way to regulate private human behavior. So what to do? First, we should rethink our rules. Make the drinking age 18. Let the standard for issuing a liquor license be the character of the license holder, not the number of licenses in a town. Bring back price competition – including happy hours – and allow the market for alcohol to be the same as it is for any other foodstuff, which is to say, largely free and unfettered. But we also need to change our attitudes. At the heart of our problem with alcohol is that we think it something evil when it is not. Sure, misuse and overindulgence are bad, with sometimes terrible consequences. But this is true of many things; a car careening into a crowd does not make the car itself evil. I’m with the poets. What we really need is a culture that celebrates the wise use of alcohol rather than a body of laws whose aim is to make us feel guilty.”

What do you think of his argument? Read the whole thing, then give us your take by leaving your reactions in the comments.

Stories this week:

After one month on the books, community leaders believe the early returns on Iowa City’s 21-only bar ordinance “look promising,” according to Lee Hermiston’s report for the Iowa City Press-Citizen. Simple assault arrests, drunk driving charges, and cases of disorderly conduct are all down, but Police Sgt. Denise Brotherton cautioned residents not to put too much stock in these early numbers: “Just a month of stats is often too early to make a permanent decision about the effectiveness (of the ordinance).”

On Monday, the editors of the Washington Post criticized the Maryland state government for so far refusing to implement a dime-a-drink tax on alcohol to prevent looming deficits in the state’s budget. Some Post readers, including industry representatives, responded by making a case against such tax hikes. Maryland residents: where do you stand on this issue?

Sticking with DC-area items, WUSA-TV warned viewers about the binge drinking crisis among teens and college students by interviewing Ryan Smith of Virginia Tech’s Center for Applied Behavior Systems. Smith, who studies alcohol consumption among young adults, told WUSA about the hundreds of breathalyzer tests, instances of property damage, and cases of public intoxication that occur in Blacksburg every weekend. The Fairfax County Police Department will soon host their second community forum on binge drinking.

In other news…

Stephen Dubner of the New York Times “Freaknonomics” blog flagged a National Bureau of Economic Research study on rates of binge drinking and sexual activity among high school students. The study’s author, Jeffrey DeSimone, wrote, “binge drinking significantly increases participation in sex, promiscuity, and the failure to use birth control, albeit by amounts considerably smaller than implied by merely conditioning on exogenous factors.”

After hearing about New York’s tough new ignition interlock law that takes effect August 15, Jerry DeMarco of the Cliffview Pilot asked readers, “Should N.J. have ignition locks for DWI convicts?”

Send us a news tip if we overlooked something in this week’s update.

The final provision of the Child Passenger Protection Act, also known as Leandra’s Law, will take effect on August 15: courts will order convicted drunk drivers to install ignition interlocks in their cars, regardless of whether a child under 16 was in the vehicle at the time. New York will join a group of 9 other states which require mandatory interlocks for all first-time offenders.

Check out the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services’ press release for more information.

Stories this week:

Make sure you read Michael Waxman’s “Maine Voices” commentary for the Portland Press Herald on the challenges posed by Legal Age 21, which was published on Monday.

Guam raised its drinking age to 21 this month, and we’ve already started to see some familiar headlines, including this one from the Pacific Daily News: “Enforcing New Law a Challenge.”

Toben Nelson of the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health surveyed 351 colleges across the country and concluded that these schools are not doing enough to prevent binge drinking among students. Check out Tim Post’s report for Minnesota Public Radio to find out why.

In other news…

A new study on alcohol consumption trends across all age groups from 1992-2002 reveals that the percentage of people who drink is trending upward. Although the average number of drinks consumed per month remained steady over that period, the study did highlight a jump in the number of people who engaged in binge drinking at least once per month. Check out Denise Mann’s breakdown of the statistics for Health.com here. The study will be published in an upcoming edition of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

The Board of Trustees at Clemson University has asked the school to develop a more comprehensive plan to reduce toxic drinking among students, including the possibility of moving the Greek rush period to the spring term. Trustee Bill Amick told the Anderson Independent Mail, “The status quo will not be accepted. We can’t get a life back.”

Anita Kumar penned an in-depth report on Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s effort to privatize liquor sales in his state. McDonnell plans to roll out his plan for privatization in early August. Get the full story in last Sunday’s edition of the Washington Post.

Please visit the Express-Times‘ Lehigh Valley Live site to join in the debate -  submit your comments and let the other readers know what you think.

“If we can’t do better by our kids than to put our heads in the sand and forget about and deny our own adolescent experiences when it comes to alcohol, then we are dropping the ball in a big way and accepting avoidable and tragic alcohol related deaths of our loved ones.”

Check out the rest of his commentary at the Press Herald site and leave your feedback in the comments.