Stories this week:

South Dakota State Rep. Tim Rounds has introduced his bill to create a special class of licensed establishments for 19-20 year-olds. David Montgomery’s report in the Capital Journal lays out all of the details. One former state’s attorney offered qualified support for the bill, saying, “If we’re not going to lose our funding, I support it…all (current law) does is put kids in the car, and there’s a lot of violence that occurs in these parties outside of town.”

Hanover, New Hampshire’s proximity to Vermont made The Dartmouth staff writer Emily Fletcher curious about [CR]’s recent efforts in her neighboring state. This week, she wrote about the January 21 House Committee hearing, and spoke to two Vermont state legislators about the conversation developing in the legislature. Rep. Margaret Cheney of Windsor said, “A lot of us feel that the current drinking age causes problems of its own, not the least of which is binge drinking.”

Marcus Garner of the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported on the recent death of Kennesaw State University student Dorian Varcianna, which investigators believe may have been the result of alcohol poisoning at an off-campus fraternity party.

In other news…

Students and staff recently came together for a meeting to discuss campus-wide alcohol policies at the University of Missouri. The President of the University’s Student Association noted that there is a gap between official policies and the realities of alcohol at Missouri: “Right now, we have what many consider a dry campus. I think that is obviously not true, from my past experience and I think I can say that a lot of people feel the same way.”

The Wisconsin legislature is currently considering a proposal that would add private colleges and universities to the list of places exempt from a law that prohibits the owner of a public place from allowing the consumption of alcohol unless the owner has a permit. Matthew Defour of the Wisconsin State Journal covered the pros and cons of the proposal earlier this week – let us know what you think.

Did we miss something in this week’s update? Send us your news tips in the comments.

Check out the video of the event and let us know if you’d like to bring a [CR] representative to your campus.

The polls are open, and voting will continue until March 4, when the Top 10 Ideas for Change in America will be announced to a group of media representatives, non-profit leaders, and officials in the Obama administration.

First-round voting ends at 5 PM EST on February 18th. Help us collect enough votes to advance to the next round by voting today!

Stories this week:

Fairfield wasn’t the only place to feature a debate between Dr. McCardell and Mr. Fell. The Police Executive Research Forum printed a point/counterpoint debate between them in the pages of their publication Subject to Debate. Check out the latest issue here – click on the 1/2010 link for access to the PDF file. The essays begin on page 4.

Chappaqua, NY resident Audrey Furfaro responded to the Journal News article about a police training program for breaking up chaotic underage drinking parties with a different suggestion: lower the drinking age. She wrote, “We treat people who are 18-19 as adults to send them to war, sign contracts, vote, etc. The focus should properly be on stopping those under 18 or still in high school from drinking, but we have cheapened the value and respect of the law by over-criminalizing drinking.”

If you missed it earlier this week, make sure to read the Rutland Herald editorial in support of the drinking age debate, which was published on Tuesday.

In other news…

A report from the Wisconsin Radio Network indicates that dangerous drinking is still a major problem at the University of Wisconsin, despite the efforts of administrators. Janet Duberry, who runs an alcohol education course for students who violate the university’s alcohol policy, said that she is getting busier every semester: “Unfortunately, our classes are very full, in fact we’re adding classes this semester…they’re drinking so thoughtlessly, and without knowing that there are consequences. They’ve normalized it to the point where they forget about the consequences.”

Nebraska is one of a small handful of states where the age of majority is not 18 across the board, but some state legislators are working to change that: the Associated Press reported that lawmakers gave initial approval to a measure that would allow 18 year-olds to enter into legally binding contracts and receive medical care without parental consent. Despite these developments, Legal Age 21 will remain unchanged.

The Daily Iowan editorial board has high hopes for a new responsible drinking campaign at the University of Iowa. The program intends to “initiate a shift away from dangerous drinking toward responsible, controlled consumption.” Check out Monday’s editorial for details.

Stay tuned for news of Dr. McCardell’s recent taping with Reason.tv. Leave us a link in the comments section if you found another newsworthy item from this week.

“McCardell is doing us a service by drawing attention to the pathology of drinking that exists around the nation. His view was shaped by his years as president of Middlebury College, where he saw the toll taken by the binge drinking and other immature behavior caused by the 21-year-old legal age and the need for students to socialize in secret. Even if discussion of a lower age is mostly abstract, it is useful for how it forces us to recognize the ways we encourage our young people to behave in a self-destructive fashion.”

The editors also pointed out that the result of Legal Age 21 is “to sequester those below 21 into dorm rooms or forest clearings where the excitement of the forbidden gives an extra thrill to the excesses that occur.” To put it bluntly, they wrote, “It is as if we want kids to go off by themselves beyond the reach of common sense.”

Read the rest of the editorial and leave your feedback in the comments.

Dr. McCardell joined the hosts in the 3rd hour of Friday’s show…the interview is available as an mp3 file here. Check it out!

Stories this week:

On Monday, Press of Atlantic City education blogger Diane D’Amico had some advice for the recently-formed New Jersey Task Force on Underage Drinking in Higher Education: “Obviously the issue is controversial.  But when kids are drinking themselves all the way to the emergency room adults have to look at the reality that exists, not the one they wish for.”

Wendy Lovell, a writer for the Delta magazine of the Sigma Nu fraternity, covered the drinking age debate in the recently-published Winter 2010 issue. Check it out here to read about how one fraternity is addressing the problem of binge drinking among its members.

In recent months, we’ve heard a number of different reports about increasing alcohol-related problems on certain college campuses. Loyola Marymount University can be added to that list of schools, according to a report by Loyolan writer Heather Chong: “New data provided by Public Safety reveals that over the past three years (2007, 2008 and 2009) there has been a significant increase in the number of documented alcohol cases. Per 100 students living on campus in 2007, 5.7 alcohol incidents were reported. By 2009, that number increased to 8.4 incidents.”

In other news…

Medill Reports at Northwestern University explored the Chicago Social Drinking Project, an initiative founded in 2004 that studies drinkers in an informal setting rather than in a research laboratory. According to a 2007 study done by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Chicago ranked highest for binge drinking rates on a list of the 15 largest cities in the country. The project’s work intends to study how certain drinking patterns might predict alcoholism later in life. Patrick McNamara, the project’s coordinator, said, “We are looking at different models of why people actually progress into alcoholism later in life. The overall goal here is to ask: Can the subjective response during the rise and decline of the blood alcohol curve be predictive of future drinking patterns?”

In case you missed it, make sure to read Miramonte High School junior Caroline Cook’s call for medical amnesty policies in California in the Monday edition of the Los Angeles Times.

Did we miss something in this week’s update? Let us know in the comments.

Check out Porter’s article and read our Week in Review tomorrow for more coverage of the hearing.

“There was alcohol at the party where Joe died. The coroner found that he had been drinking — though not enough to be legally drunk — but didn’t determine a cause of death. A lot of people in town believe that Joe died, at least in part, because other underage drinkers at the party were reluctant to call 911 for fear of being punished…

Of course, it might be better if teenagers didn’t drink, but they do, and that isn’t likely to change. In Northern California, where I live, the 2007 California Healthy Kids Survey found widespread alcohol consumption by students in my high-achieving high school district. Thirty-eight percent of ninth-graders and 68% of 11th-graders admitted consuming alcohol at least once, with 22% and 43%, respectively, having consumed alcohol within the last 30 days. In Los Angeles County, the survey found that 48% of ninth-graders and 63% of 11th-graders had imbibed; 28% and 36% respectively within the last 30 days. These numbers are not far out of line with national statistics.”

Cook also noted that problems occur as a result of the gap between messaging and perception: “Teens are often skeptical of the warnings they’ve received about the dangers of alcohol, and so don’t recognize when someone is in immediate and critical need of help.”

What do you think? Check out the rest of her piece and leave your feedback in the comments.

Stories this week:

Last year, two students died in alcohol-related incidents at Kansas University. But according to Jesse Fray of the Lawrence Journal-World, binge drinking continues to be a problem among students, where off-campus drinking is becoming more popular than on-campus drinking. Survey results also show that about a third of KU students binge drink. Marlesa Roney, KU’s Vice Provost for Student Success, said, “There’s still a significant issue with alcohol consumption on campus and still a need to continue to work hard, to educate our students and give our students tools to make better decisions.”

The editors of the Daily Princetonian conducted a survey on alcohol use among Princeton University students, and some of the results were unsettling: 53% of respondents said at least once they had been drunk enough to throw up. Gabriel Debenditti covered the survey results and the larger culture of alcohol at Princeton today in a story called “The Nightmare Scenario.”

In the wake of a pair of alcohol poisoning deaths in 2004, the city of Boulder, Colorado began a widespread effort to work with University of Colorado administrators to curb dangerous drinking among students. The number of groups formed to address this issue grew to 14, and now, the two groups will streamline their efforts under one umbrella organization: the Campus-Community Coalition on Alcohol Abuse. Check out Heather Urie’s article in the Daily Camera to learn about the group’s formation.

In other news…

Hayley Peterson of the Washington Examiner reported on a controversy brewing over a proposed 10-cent-per-drink tax in Maryland. The new tax “would apply to every 8 ounces of alcohol — totaling about 55 cents for a bottle of wine and 75 cents on a handle of liquor.” The bill’s sponsors hope the tax will curb dangerous alcohol consumption, while its opponents argue that customers will simply take their business to other states. What’s your take?

Penn State Daily Collegian columnist Rich Coleman listened to This American Life’s story about heavy drinking at PSU from late December, and he didn’t like what he heard: “when the residents here install motion sensors around their houses to combat trespassing drunks or can correctly identify the sound of a stop sign being dragged across the ground, then we have officially become, at the very least, bad neighbors.” In the end, he wrote, “when you step back from everything and see how our dependence on alcohol and its effects must look to an outsider — in this case through the eyes of a radio show host and his crew who make their living documenting different places and people — you start to rethink things. Suddenly, the normalcy of binge drinking and pregaming turns into absurdity.”

Do you have a story for our update this week? Leave a link in the comments.