<p>
[quote]
police in C'ville are very lax on student alcohol and parties
[/quote]
No they're not. They're only "lax" on the kids who are minding their own business and being responsible about drinking, underage or not. But if you're visibly drunk, causing problems, or your party is too loud, they will arrest you without hesitation. Also, ABC has been covering bars A TON recently, preventing underage people with/without fakes from entering, and keeping drunks out.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It's the RAs that bust behaviour, be it pot-smoking or underage drinking.
[/quote]
That's because drinking in dorms is an easy target. Duh. Smoking pot in dorms is even freaking stupider. Cops don't mess with people and pot unless it's in public or some shady crap is going down. People who smoke weed are less likely to cause trouble than an idiot who is drunk, so cops direct their resources to better problems (see below)</p>
<p>
[quote]
It's almost as the profs and instructors cynically take it as a given
[/quote]
It's college, what should they expect? My professor the other day joked about bringing beer to our review sessions, hoping more people would show up. It's better them knowing and understanding, because they're not going to purposely screw over kids as punishment for drinking.</p>
<p>
[quote]
number of non-drinkers (not even talking about the number of first-year and second-year non-drinkers) is a fairly large minority.
[/quote]
National</a> Social Norms Institute Not true man, a majority of students at UVA drink on weekends. Doesn't mean they get drunk though. This is college, it's not a crime to drink.</p>
<p>Re: Police resources: the cops only have so many cops on the force. On weekends, they have to prioritize. Thus, idiots/unsafe people/violence is going to take the front seat. That's why a normal, responsible person, even if underage, is not going to get arrested for drinking. Also, remember, lots of kids are 21+ and you really can't be arrested unless you're acting visibly drunk in public. I think one alcohol arrest takes a cop off the streets for an average of an hour, and who knows what else could be more important in that hour. That, and they have hearts, and don't want to arrest every poor kid for just trying to have a good time in college.</p>