The wrong enemy

'U' drinking task force is misguided

The death of LSA first-year student Courtney Cantor sent shock-waves through the University community, administrators and students were forced to try to make sense of the senseless tragedy. One response to this incident has been a focus on the perceived problem of underage drinking. As part of a general trend across the nation, Vice President for Student Affairs Maureen Hartford commissioned a binge drinking task force to target the problem of drinking among first-year students at the University. Although the task force was formed before Cantor's death, the campaign to crack down on underage drinking has only intensified in recent weeks.

While the University's concern for the welfare of its students is admirable, the administration needs to rethink how it deals with underage drinking. The binge drinking task force is as misguided as it is ineffective. Alcohol and Other Drug Education Coordinator Marsha Benz has stated, in reference to Cantor's death, that "what tragedies do is allow what work has been done to try to reduce the problems associated with alcohol to come to the forefront."

Benz's statement confirms what many have suspected for some time with regard to the fervor over underage drinking: Cantor's death was probably not just a result of irresponsible binge drinking - her blood alcohol level was 0.059, below the level required for a legal definition of impairment. While it is always comforting to be able to point a finger, underage drinking is not an insidious plague sweeping across college campuses. The administration and its task forces are not the cure to a social plague.

But this issue is not so simple. Alcohol abuse is a serious problem nationwide, on or off college campuses. But the witchunt aimed at people under 21 years of age is not an effective nor sensible solution. For one thing, the University's task force has fashioned itself more as a looming parental figure than a concerned educator. Hartford has said that the number of University students who "drink to get drunk" is higher than the national average. Such a claim is suspect at best.

Rather than trying to define who is an irresponsible drinker, efforts to combat alcohol abuse should focus on educating people of all ages. By providing students with a useful forum for discussing the dangers of excessive drinking rather than trying to nip the underage drinking problem in the bud, the University would be doing students a service.

By focusing specifically on first-year students, the task force has used age in determining whether a student's drinking habits are unsafe. The assumption is that when drinking is illegal - when the person is under 21 - it is more dangerous. This is, of course, absurd. The legal age limit for the consumption of alcohol is both arbitrary and illogical. Eighteen-year-olds in this country are given the right to vote - they are entrusted with the responsibility of participating in the process to determine what is best for the nation - yet they are told that they are not responsible enough to drink. The University's dedication to crack down on underage drinking echoes this national inconsistency. Rather than vilifying this widespread practice, the University should trust and respect students as adults by educating them about alcohol abuse and allowing them to learn instead of forcing them to listen.

11-04-98