<p>“And we need to address whatever deeper problems are driving young people to want to exit life for a few hours (or more) by getting blotto drunk.”</p>
<p>A segment of the population wants to do this in every culture, in every era. I don’t think alleviating stress on kids (or whatever) till make that go away. Some people like getting wasted. Fewer people do it when it’s socially unacceptable, but lots of folks don’t need a reason to binge.</p>
<p>When I was at McGill there was plenty of drinking both on and off campus. The difference was that it was a social thing, done legally mostly in bars and clubs. While there were drunk students I never saw anyone passed out. (I never heard of anyone being transported to a hospital.) At a bar they would be cut off before it got to that point. There was adult supervision by bar staff and other customers. </p>
<p>Sports culture at McGill is minimal as is the Greek system so that may be a factor. But I believe that the difference is that students learn to drink responsibly due to the fact that it is legal and open. McGill students do not have to sneak a bottle or six pack past the RA nor to they have to try and get fake ID’s. It is not forbidden fruit. </p>
<p>Interesting that at Queen’s University in Ontario there is a binge drinking problem. Queen’s is the only top Canadian school located in a college town and Ontario has a drinking age of 19 instead of 18. </p>
<p>I don’t think it is the college’s responsibility to stop their students from binge drinking. However, I’ve thought a lot about why kids drink so much hard liquor now. I was in college after the drinking age went back up to 21 but we mainly drank beer at parties and in bars. It was what was affordable and it was what tasted good. We did not have all these amazing flavors of vodka, etc. that tasted good as shots. People did occasional tequila shots but seriously, it tasted so awful that you didn’t want to do that many. Most hard liquor was pretty nasty tasting straight so doing shots was kind of nasty. I think the better tasting liquors has helped to increase the binge drinking tendencies. </p>