<p>Agree completely Opie. The automatic breathalizer and targeting thing happens at PSU too. My son tells me that his friends have advised him that it’s better NOT to submit to the Breathalyzer since you can at least fight it in court. I’m not sure about this strategy - I told him the best policy was not to drink and to stay away from drinkers (good luck). But I too think it’s crazy to nab kids who are minding their own business and not causing any trouble - and then take their driver’s license away. My son actually made the comment to me about how it seems to be safer to drive - YIKES - what a message! BTW, they handed out 850 citations last year - wow. I know they’re fighting a losing battle on the drinking front - but why target kids who are drinking responsibly (and not driving) or just happen to be with others who are doing something stupid?</p>
<p>As a parent I’d definitely want to understand the school’s policies and possible consequences. The policies may also determine the degree of parent involvement. At S’s school, disciplinary proceedings are closed, no parents, lawyers, or witnesses allowed (yep, been there, done that). If a student admits to the charges, even he does not attend (the student meets in advance with a disciplinary hearing officer, who then writes up a report and recommendation for sanctions, which is then rubber-stamped at the actual hearing).</p>
<p>“My son actually made the comment to me about how it seems to be safer to drive - YIKES - what a message”</p>
<p>That was exactly the message being sent. If you walk home, we’ll get ya, if you drive, we won’t. Sometimes with police and police policies you have to point out the logic of the “reactions” their actions cause. Crackdowns around campus usually “drive” kids off campus, the greater the distance the greater the risk to the community. So if your forcing kids 10 miles into the woods to drink, your also creating an 10 mile drive home while intoxicated. </p>
<p>in the old days WA state U and stateline to ID were 8 miles apart… drinking age 21 in WA 18 in ID. That 8 mile stretch used to be accident city every weekend.. lots of injuries and deaths… I rather see em toss a beer back on campus and walk around SAFELY then get behind the wheel.. even if it’s underage.. I’m a realist. Sorry you simply aren’t going to stop a kid from drinking cause you don’t want him/her to. If they want to they’ll find a way. The problem becomes one of how far they’ll go to get that buzz. The farther they go especially behind the wheel the greater the probabilty someone who has nothing to do with the evenings fun will get hurt.. like the passengers and driver of the car they slam into…</p>
<p>Figured I would throw in my feelings on the topic of drinking and alcohol in college and how my parents influcenced me to make the right decisions. Neither of my parents drink much at all and they never really have. My dad has a few beers here and there but what guy doesn’t? So when I went away to college, they said that they knew I would be in situations were alcohol was present and that it was ok to drink amongst friends as long as I am responsible and safe about it. They said that they drank from time to time during college and always in limited quantities and that they will never get mad at me for doing so as long as I am being smart about it. I hear way too often of parents telling their kids “You had better not drink of else”. If anything, this attitude makes kids want to drink even more because they know it is forbidden. After hearing what my parents said about the subject, I find myself almost never drinking and when I do, I keep my promise to stay safe and responsible. Perhaps what they said just resonated with me, but I think all parents should have a discussion about this topic with their college-bound kids. Drinking, like sex, is something that you are exposed to in college and it should never be made out to be something horrible that you shouldn’t do. If done responsibly, there is nothing wrong.</p>
<p>Opie - Agree again. As a parent, I paid attention to that dynamic while checking out schools. There were a few on my son’s list that clearly involved driving to a nearby town or very far off-campus frat houses for partying. Very scary. At the bigger campuses with integrated college towns (like UNC, Cornell, UVA, or Penn State there seemed to be more walking. And lots of ripe picking for cops looking for citations- a revenue builder I understand.</p>
<p>I wish I was young. Drinking among 18-22 year olds is not a new development. What is new is the attempt to criminalize it. Better off doing cocaine, it’s easier to hide when the RA comes in. 20/20 does a report on…surprise…college kids get drunk, and the colleges feel compelled to string up a few students as examples. The fact that men and women are dying in Iraq who don’t have the right to buy a beer in the US should give a few people pause. </p>
<p>Hypocrisy and stupidity is nothing new, but the flavor of the month deserves to be called out.</p>
<p>“My son actually made the comment to me about how it seems to be safer to drive - YIKES - what a message”
That was exactly the message being sent. If you walk home, we’ll get ya, if you drive, we won’t. Sometimes with police and police policies you have to point out the logic of the “reactions” their actions cause. Crackdowns around campus usually “drive” kids off campus, the greater the distance the greater the risk to the community. So if your forcing kids 10 miles into the woods to drink, your also creating an 10 mile drive home while intoxicated. </p>
<p>That’s exactly what happened to S1 and friends. They would walk home from different off campus residences and the cops would either come out from behind the bushes or pull over in their cars and question them…actually interrogate them right on the street. S1 ran back to the dorm..“over the river and through the woods”.
It got to the point where they figured it was easier to drive to and from their friend’s house than to walk.</p>
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<p>Exactly. And draconian punishments also make students reluctant to seek help when someone has drunk to the point that they need medical attention.</p>
<p>Yeah, that’s the other policy here that I really like: you cannot get in trouble for bringing a student to the health center with alcohol poisoning, they cannot get in trouble for being brought in, and there is actually a good samaritan rule that students have a responsibility to bring those who appear to have alcohol poisoning in.</p>
<p>I think it’s a fantastic set of policies we have here. As to the person earlier who hinted that it was because the school needs the students’ financial contributions - that may be true, but the policies are good nonetheless.</p>
<p>So the police on a campus can just randomly walk up to a student and demand a breathalyzer test? Do they at least have to pretend that they have reason to suspect drinking? Sounds like Marshall law.</p>
<p>From what I hear, they target kids walking at late hours (after 2am) so there’s a pretty good chance they’ll find what they’re looking for. They can always claim they saw a stumble or smelled alcohol - pretty easy. This doesn’t happen on every campus - just some. I remember doing research on Ivies when my son was looking and they are apparently very loose. They don’t believe in interfering unless there’s some apparent trouble (sickness, violence, destruction of property). Seems to be the right approach to me.</p>
<p>The funny thing is that at my son’s school, they also preach “responsible drinking” (posters and handouts at orientation). Have one or two - they say- don’t drink to excess. And then they go ahead and nab these kids. They also do NOT have an alcohol amnesty policy - so friends of kids in bad shape may hesitate to call.
Parents and students, check out these practices before you make your decision! There are HUGE variations in how this stuff is handled at different schools. For example, I know Lehigh has been having alcohol problems for years, and they are now really cracking down - including random arrests. In many cases, these policies seem to be an overreaction to past problems -</p>
<p>At Boston University, they finally instituted rule so that if you take a friend to hospital or call for some sort of help, those who call will not be punished, even if they have been drinking themselves. If someone was drinking and appeared to be in danger of something bad happening, most of us would just keep the kid comfortable and hope that nothing went wrong. We were afraid to call an ambulance or the BU police dept because we knew we would all get in trouble. Luckily, they instituted the new policy so that if someone needs help, we can do so without risking our own housing or having to pay fines. It was a smart move on the part of the school and one that will keep students safer in the end.</p>
<p>ZG recently got breathalyzed. In the late afternoon, no less. she is just a bit of a doofus and took a spectacular fall down a flight of stairs, so a visiting RA called the police. She was forced to sit in a room and wait for them and then be breathalyzed. The reading was, of course, zero and she has documentation to prove it because the police were annoyed at being called for that. I don’t love how this was handled. Anyone could fall in the afternoon and it doesn’t mean she is drunk. Needless to say, she was very, very upset.</p>
<p>zm. I’m betting that was more of a “risk managment/liability decision” than anything else. At many employers a drug screen is done after ANY accident, no matter the time of day. (It’s pretty tough to win a "slip and fall’ if your client is loaded. No matter the condition of the stairs.)</p>
<p>ZG - that is amazing to me. I don’t drink - Lord knows I tried in college, but always ended up with the head in the toilet - but bringing out the breathalyzer in a situation like you described really irks me. Seems like campus security at some of these colleges are paid by the number of drinking kids they can catch. This is definitely giving me something else to check out in the college search. If my D falls down the steps, I’d like to see the xray machine come out before the breathalyzer.</p>
<p>“ZG - that is amazing to me. I don’t drink - Lord knows I tried in college, but always ended up with the head in the toilet - but bringing out the breathalyzer in a situation like you described really irks me. Seems like campus security at some of these colleges are paid by the number of drinking kids they can catch. This is definitely giving me something else to check out in the college search. If my D falls down the steps, I’d like to see the xray machine come out before the breathalyzer.”</p>
<p>I was pretty annoyed about that, but she is a klutz, so it wasn’t out of the norm. I think it may very well be liability, but I hadn’t realized that. I’ve got to mention it to her because she may feel better.</p>
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<p>I think she should.</p>
<p>As a matter of principle I would refuse that kind of Breathalyzer test.</p>
<p>toneranger: Too bad about the lack of amnesty policy. Personally, I think that such rules are probably the most important thing colleges need to have in their alcohol policies. It really, really is a very good tool at keeping students safe.</p>
<p>And yes, your research is about right for the Ivies. Kind of goes by the maxim “Don’t punish drinking, punish dangerous/disruptive behavior.”</p>
<p>So the liability argument is that if a student were suffering from alcohol poisoning and they didn’t catch it, they would be liable? If that’s the case, then they should do an ECG to make sure they weren’t suffering from an undiagnosed heart defect.</p>
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<p>Nope. The liabilty/risk management concern in this case is that somebody fell down your staircase.</p>