<p>"(But she can tackle the eating clubs if she chose. Other places have, with frats, including those off university property." </p>
<p>Mini, it is difficult to have a discussion with you when you make these glib suggestions, as though a whole history of intelligent people attempting to work on a problem did not exist or as though admins at one school were utterly unaware of events at the others. In fact, there have been endless brouhahas at Princeton over the past few years as the university has worked together sometimes with the Borough police and other times with the eating club officers -- and sometimes when the former arrest the latter -- in order to stop binge drinking. </p>
<p>'Secondly, college students at prestige institutions can and do bring wine into the dining rooms/eating halls all the time. (or at least they used to.) They have wine-and-cheese parties sponsored by their houses (not by the college); and some colleges (isn't Swarthmore one?) actually buy kegs of beer for campus parties."</p>
<p>I can't speak for Williams or any other school here except Princeton. I can tell you that many, if not most, social events sponsored by the university, including big-name concerts at the eating clubs, are sponsored by the Alcohol Initiative (misnamed) and the Prospect Initiative. And they are dry.</p>
<p>
[quote]
which Wechsler specifically disparages, both in his own reports, and as noted in the SUNY rebuttal provided by aparent5. Did you read that?
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</p>
<p>I have read Wechsler's research reports and it is absolutely false to say that he disparages "social norms" efforts. Quite the contrary, he includes education about true drinking rates as a major component of his recommended actions. His writing on the subject is all about changing the drinking culture at these schools and so-called "social norms marketing" is a component of that effort -- basically empowering the abstainers and non-binge drinkers to take back the campus.</p>
<p>Wechsler, however, does suggest that such efforts have proven to be unsuccessful with the truly hard-core drinking element on campus -- the group he calls "frequent binge drinkers". It is his belief that this particular campus group only responds to punative sanctions. Therefore, he does seem to pooh-pooh the notion that "social norms marketing" as the only component of an alcohol program, can be truly effective.</p>
<p>The young men that I have gotten to know from the English "public" schools are shocked by the American attitude toward school-age drinking.</p>
<p>Admittedly, I have no empirical evidence to back this up, but they seem to have a much more enlightened approach toward drinking, meaning a couple of beers or glasses of wine and that's it. They don't seem to be interested in drinking for the sake of getting drunk.</p>
<p>I also must admit that usually when I have been with these young guys, one of their masters has also been present, which may have a downward impact on their drinking.</p>
<p>UMDAD, students and adults I talk to in the UK think our drinking age is ridiculous.</p>
<p>Mini, it's hard to know how it's going. I guess they are going for a gradual cultural change. There is one club known for serious binge drinking. In the others I hear there are some who drink a lot, but others feel no pressure to drink at all. The university's dry social functions actually seem to be a big hit, bringing in some great entertainment. When students end up in the infirmary more than twice, I believe, their parents are contacted and they go through some sort of educational process. Ahead of houseparties and the infamous Newman's Day, the deans of the residential colleges evidently got together with students and promoted drinking in moderation. In my book that was a courageous stance. It is the same stance we took with our kids toward the end of hs and in college. And it is the only time in my life when I found myself in the position of advocating illegal activity. Didn't like it much.</p>
<p>
[quote]
They have wine-and-cheese parties sponsored by their houses (not by the college); and some colleges (isn't Swarthmore one?) actually buy kegs of beer for campus parties."
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</p>
<p>No. I think that Swarthmore administrators would prefer that student activities budgets be available to openly buy alcohol for campus parties as part of the routine party funding mechanism. But, current federal/state regulations prevent that. </p>
<p>Not to speak for the administrators there, but I think they view drinking at large public functions such as dances or concerts as far preferable to forcing parties off-campus, pre-gaming, or drinking games because it is an environment where social norms and other monitoring mechanisms can be, and are, most effective.</p>
<p>The current system results in a degree of dishonesty in the party-funding mechanism (receipt-reimbursement shenanigans) that the college administrators find troubling.</p>
<p>I think the reason they find the drinking age counterproductive is that it makes it more difficult to provide environments where moderate social drinking is the norm. However, they are also quick to acknowledge that the 21-year old drinking age has reduced teen drunk driving nationwide, to everyone's benefit.</p>
<p>I should also add a subtle point about the Swat alcohol policy. Although not explicitly stated, I believe that the administration condones (and privately encourages) the Swarthmore police to visibly patrol the roadways on campus, especially on Friday and Saturday nights. I can't prove it, but my hunch is that they view a few well-publicized student arrests for public intoxication as helpful in communicating social norms. Several administrators have commented following an arrest that "it is not a bad thing" for students to understand the consequences of unacceptable drinking behavior.</p>
<p>"they are also quick to acknowledge that the 21-year old drinking age has reduced teen drunk driving nationwide, to everyone's benefit."</p>
<p>Interesteddad, it is the ages of 16-18 that are by far at highest risk here, and in most European countries they have a higher driving age than we do, which solves the problem. <a href="http://www.2pass.co.uk/ages.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.2pass.co.uk/ages.htm</a> Of course, they are more urban and we are so dependent on cars in this country...</p>
<p>Re: Hobart William Smith: The link that YOU posted as a significant source deals with the successful social norms marketing approach. You can look it up.</p>
<p>I think that Wechsler's use of the term "binge drinking" is the ultimate expression of social norms marketing. He is making a pointed effort to characterize high-risk levels of alcohol consumption as something that is not normal or acceptable behavior. He is, to put it bluntly, attempting to stigmatize high-risk drinking. IMO, that is a good thing.</p>
<p>Not so fast ... the assumption that lowering the drinking age will solve whatever problem exists and then using UK as a proof is a bit of hooey.</p>
<p>Binge drinking in the UK is such a problem that it is one of the key issues in the upcoming electoral debates.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Last week the Royal College of Physicians warned that Britain was in the grip of a binge-drinking epidemic
<p>Yes, but in British young people drink more than their European counterparts, who have a lower drinking age than we do. <a href="http://alcalc.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/full/37/2/109%5B/url%5D">http://alcalc.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/full/37/2/109</a> My personal theory -- completely unsubstantiated! -- is that the problem is that in the UK their food is terrible, and the pub and football culture is all tied up with alcohol. In fact, re the posts on Afr-Am binge drinking being less, I wondered whether the cultural appreciation for sitting around a table over a meal might be a factor. In my own ethnicity that is certainly the case, and I have read the same about Jews, who are often cited for a low incidence of alcohol abuse.</p>
<p>I can't say if there is more binge drinking today than there was when I was 18, or when I was an undergrad. When I visit colleges, all type of colleges, there is a heavy drinking scene on weekends just as there was when I was in college. I don't know how to measure the amounts of abuse today vs in my day. I CAN tell you that there are more kids with cars, more money available per kid these days. There were very few kids with cars at my college, and those were the "rich kids". Now kids on heavy financial aid may have a car--it's is something more across the income spectrum. And kids are eating out more, indulging themselves at Starbucks, a very expensive pasttime, and many run out of money or their families do, making their progression through college problematic. But while the kids are in college, I don't see much temperance even from kids who need to practice those measures. </p>
<p>I don't see how lowering the drinking age is going to stop this binge drinking. If anything, it will embolden some who are drinking but holding the line because it is illegal. THere are kids who are careful about crossing certain lines. We had some problems with my son when he turned 21, and I suspect my D overindulged for a while as soon as she was legal, but they simply were more mature than they were at age 18, and it was not as bad as it could be for that reason. THey had more to lose, they had sipped and sampled and snuck some before they were of legal age so it was not a totally new thing to them, and they were busy with other more pressing things with life. Though I do disagree with the legal age to drink being 21, because of consistancy issues with the law, I can tell you that it does stem some stupidity as the kids wait until they are 21 to celebrate their drinking legality, simply because they are older. Some never grow up.</p>
<p>Many of us survived our stupidities from drinking, drugs, and other illicit, harmful activities, true. But many did not. And many of them took down others due to lack of judgement. I believe our generation had more cars, more money, etc than the one before and the use of drugs, alcohol, impaired judgement did cost people their lives. Whether raising the age to 21 had an impact or not, I don't know. I do see stats on car fatalities with drinking or drugs have been reduced in the 18-21 age span. It also makes it easier to ban alcohol and drinking around school events. If it were legal, I can't imagine what these kids with senioritus would be doing. There are simply more opportunities for abuse these days, also the penalities are more severe. In my day, a teacher was likely to overlook someone slightly tips, a cop would just call the parent of a kid who was drunk. Not as much any more. You can get the book thrown at you.</p>
<p>One way lowering the drinking age might help is that more drinking behavior is likely to occur in social situations like dance clubs, music events and even academic events. It is hard to find many students who don't drink because it is illegal. There seem to be other reasons for not drinking that come into play. As others have noted, the drinking and driving issue is handled differently in European countries who have lower drinking ages. Unfortunately students do not have the opportunity to model their drinking behavior on responsible drinkers these days like many of us were able to do when the drinking age was lower and you were much more likely to have occassions to drink alcohol around adults. Today if they are under 21 they often only model their drinking behavior on those just like themselves.</p>
<p>"Unfortunately students do not have the opportunity to model their drinking behavior on responsible drinkers these days like many of us were able to do when the drinking age was lower and you were much more likely to have occassions to drink alcohol around adults."</p>
<p>You think? I would have thought young people, especially from upper middle and upper income families would have had lots of exposure to moderate/responsible drinking in their homes, or in travel. Occasions for wine with dinner, an occasional beer at the barbecue in the backyard or on a boat, wine with dinner when traveling, etc. But I'll admit I may be out of the loop.</p>
<p>At any rate, I can't see this explaining why at some schools, 5 out 7 drinkers are binge drinkers, while at other schools, with very similar demographics, it is 2 out of 7. Something cultural has to be happening on the campuses themselves to explain the discrepancy (which is what the social norms marketing attempts to get at - although, it might have the opposite impact on campuses when the majority culture is not made up of moderate drinkers.)</p>
<p>I'm completely baffled how anyone could conclude that a solution to a problem is to LOWER the age of participation. Does that logic then imply that a way to solve the problem of poor/reckless driving habits of 16-18 year olds is to lower the driving age to 14? </p>
<p>We tried lowering the drinking age once and that experiment ended up killing a lot of people. Should we repeat it just because Europe does it? And, note that the study referenced above said that binge drinking among students in the UK is HIGHER than in the corresponding group in the US. And we blame it on differences in food quality???</p>
<p>Actually, fundingfather, if you read carefully, you will see that I noted that in Europe, the driving age is higher than ours. In most countries it is 18.</p>
<p>However, if you look just at drinking statistics, the UK, with its lower drinking age has a HIGHER incidence of binge drinking. Therefore to conclude that a way to deal with binge drinking is to lower the drinking age just doesn't make sense. What you will end up with in the UK is a population that drinks more AND is just learning how to drive. Sounds like a formula for disaster to me.</p>
<p>I don't disagree with you. However, there is a pragmatic problem for college administrators in having half the campus "legal" and half "illegal" -- especially when they know that students of all ages on their campus are going to drink one way or another.</p>
<p>For example, if drinking is going to occur, administrators would prefer that it occur out in the open in public settings, where the sole focus of the event is not the drinking. Yet, depending on the law enforcement climate in their state, they cannot do this. </p>
<p>For example, it would be technically illegal for a college administrator or faculty member to be at a function where underage students are drinking, when the reality is that you would prefer drinking to occur in places where there are adult role models. It can get very messy, as it did at Williams College a few years back when the Head of Campus Security was arrested by the local police for knowingly allowing underage drinking. It just makes for an awkward enforcement situtation and a situation where the campus administrators and local authorities may not be trying to row the boat in the same direction.</p>
<p>If a campus wants to be in total compliance with the law, the only pragmatic means is to declare the campus to be "dry". However, if you do this at a college with an existing heavy drinking culture, you risk displacing the drinking off campus with an added risk of DUI fatalities.</p>
<p>I don't think we get very far by applying the broad brush. The fact is that, despite operating under the same or similar laws, campuses with relatively similar demographics can and do have very different rates of binge drinking, moderate drinking, drinking and driving, etc. This is precisely what "campus culture" is all about, and can be a positive or negative force in students' lives, with each student taking a different view of it. There is, for example, a huge overlap in admissions between Amherst and Swarthmore, (and they have far more similarities than differences); yet, the campus cultures are different, not just regarding drinking, but lots of other stuff as well. (I'll bet the same is true of Reed and Whitman.) Hey, that's much of what this board is all about!</p>
<p>Look - the colleges flaunt the law already. They have repeatedly been held civilly liable in cases of death and injury from alcohol, on campus or off - usually, the cases don't even get to court, as their lawyers tell them to settle. They are responsible to the extent that they appoint resident or junior advisors who aid or abet student drinking, they may yet be held criminally liable as well. They are relatively free to do what they want - put money into "student activity budgets" and have the junior advisors (without their official knowledge of course) hold wine and cheese parties; or they can hold the advisors accountable to report binge drinkers to the proper authorities (on campus or off), and look the other way with the moderates. Or they can end tailgating, or check for alcohol at sporting events. Or simply find ways to make binge drinking "uncool". Changes are slow - as aparent5 noted - cultural changes are like that. But it's a heck of a lot faster than waiting for laws to change and then hoping results are positive (I doubt it), and a lot happier than waiting for the next campus death to occur.</p>
<p>Colleges are not the only places that young people get into trouble drinking. In our area, the police regularly make catches in the parking lots where kids gather to drink and take drugs. Many of them are high school kids; sometime they are older kids who are not in college but do not have their own places. No money, so they pool their change to buy some bottles and whatever to pass around as they "hang out". Problem is many of them are not in shape to drive home afterwards. I don't know the solution to any of this. I doubt if legalizing drink is going to help this scenario which is a precursor to a lot of trouble among young people.</p>