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<p>Old joke</p>
<p>Guy is stopped by an irate Mall Security Guard in a parking deck and he’s told he was doing 11 mph in a 7 mph zone.</p>
<p>Guy says “That’s impossible Officer! My car shimmers at 6.”</p>
<p>Always loved that one.</p>
<p>Most of the wide open thruways near me have a 65 speed limit – only the areas near cities are 55.</p>
<p>“Telling college kids not to drink is pretty unreasonable.”</p>
<p>The OP in this thread is 17, not a college student.</p>
<p>Wow, that is such a haunting story about Lucifer from UVA. If he wasn’t a poster child against binge drinking, I don’t know who is. So sad.</p>
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<p>And yet the denial continues. “It’s only a small percentage who die.” </p>
<p>Yeah, right.</p>
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<p>I dunno, I’d call that a small percentage.</p>
<p>edit:</p>
<p>More fun quotes from the Potsdam website:
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<p>I don’t really have much to add to that, since I think the posters here are intelligent enough to extrapolate anything else.</p>
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<p>Um, it is right. Most colleges go years without having a fatality due to alcohol poisoning. Alcohol poisoning deaths are very, very, very rare.</p>
<p>I, for better or for worse, get to work with those who live, the 12-13% of the population who have lifetime problems caused by alcohol abuse or alcoholism. Most of them never believed it would happen to them. No one planned for liver cancer, cirrhosis, alcohol-linked breast cancer, or alcohol-related complications from diabetes; marital problems or family breakups; child abuse or neglect; falls, drownings, or firearm injuries (I could make a much longer list.</p>
<p>The majority of college binge drinkers will not end up with these conditions (at least related to drinking). The majority of college heavy drinkers will.</p>
<p>What’s the difference between a binge drinker and a heavy drinker? I thought by definition binge drinking was heavy drinking.</p>
<p>Heavy drinking is defined by chronicity (number of days drinking), not by bingeing itself. Of course, if you binge four times in two weeks, you will also be considered a heavy drinker.</p>
<p>The police can’t come in if they don’t have a warrant, and they can’t get a warrant if they don’t have probable cause.</p>
<p>If the police knock, make sure everyone stays out of the way except the owner (or kid of owner) of the house. Hide all the open containers and paraphernalia, and then barely open the door and go greet them on the porch. If they tell you to keep the noise down, do it. If they ask to come in, say that you do not consent to any warrantless searches. You can’t physically get in their way, but you can keep repeating that you don’t consent. If they ask “have you been drinking” or anything like that, either say you exercise your 5th amendment right, or just don’t say anything, and politely smile at them.</p>
<p>If they say something like “I need to see your keys”, say no. That’s a devious way of trying to garner your consent to search the house. Also, don’t let them “knock and talk”. They cant come in without a warrant, so don’t feel obligated to engage them in conversation. Also if they say something like “You don’t have any pot in here do you!? Mind if I take a peek?”, answer both questions separately. If you just blurt out “no” to a compound question, you’ve also given them consent to come in.</p>
<p>This is far from an exhaustive list.</p>
<p>^Or you could just not drink, and then you wouldn’t have to worry. Yes, high school and college kids drink, but guess what? It’s still illegal. The fact that “everyone does it” doesn’t make it any less illegal. If you break the law, you should get punished.</p>
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<p>Look, I think that our nation’s attitudes and laws with regard to drinking are foolish, and encourage binge drinking.</p>
<p>Yes, alcohol poisoning deaths are rare. How many is too many? “Rare” is very comforting until it is you, your friend, or your kid. For parents who’ve been on CC for a while, Lucifer’s story is immediate and chilling. </p>
<p>The OP is a HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT with no exposure to rational alcohol consumption (a glass of wine with dinner, 2 or 3 (not 8 or 10) beers over the course of an evening with friends, etc). He is planning to go with a group of other 17 and 18 yr olds to a condo and drink. Think about that scenario. </p>
<p>Yes, the chances of actual DEATH by alcohol poisoning among college students are rare. Partially because someone calls 911 or takes the student to the infirmary most of the time. I know of several kids at the local HS who have been taken in an ambulance to the hospital with alcohol poisoning, and survived. I’m sure there are far more than I know about. Is someone in the condo, one of the other drunken 17 yr olds, going to have the guts or the judgment to do that, even if everyone else is saying no, we don’t want to get into trouble? This is not a college campus where the infirmary will take the student, no questions asked.</p>
<p>And let’s not even talk about death by alcohol poisoning.</p>
<p>What about unprotected sex between drunken 17 yr olds, resulting in pregnancy, STDs, et al? What about non-consensual sex between drunken 17-yr olds, one of whom is too plastered to resist effectively and the other of whom is too drunk to recognize a “no”? AKA rape? What about one of these immortal drunken 17 yr olds deciding to go for a drive? (If he or she killed only him/herself, it would be a mercy.) What about a swim?</p>
<p>This is a bad idea. I don’t care about the legality.</p>
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<p>OP:
I haven’t read all the posts, in fact I read no further than this one. Let me bore you with a personal story. My siblings and I grew up–literally–at a blue collar bar. We worked there, and we lived upstairs. The only way upstairs to our apartment was through the bar area. </p>
<p>Last week two of my sisters and I were wondering how it was that none of the five us of are drinkers, and we agreed that it was the years of observing, at close range, all those drunks who thought they were carrying on reasonable conversations and “having fun” when all the while they were making complete fools of themselves and ruining their lives–not to mention the lives of their family members.</p>
<p>Try staying sober while your friends are “having fun” and pay attention to how worldly and sophisticated they sound.</p>
<p>My father continued to tend bar even after his heart condition required that he stop drinking altogether. After a short while, he started pretending he had developed a serious hearing impairment so he didn’t have to participate in the drunken conversations of his customers. (They didn’t think they were drunken, by the way.) </p>
<p>Lecture over. I just hope my own kids can learn the lesson from my testimony, and not from experience.</p>
<p>
Oh, you mean like Scott Krueger, a freshman at MIT? Surely he was smart enough to extrapolate anything else. And yet, he’s still dead.
[A</a> Drinking Death Rattles Elite M.I.T.; Latest Fraternity Party Case Underscores Nationwide Problem - The New York Times](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/01/us/drinking-death-rattles-elite-mit-latest-fraternity-party-case-underscores.html]A”>http://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/01/us/drinking-death-rattles-elite-mit-latest-fraternity-party-case-underscores.html)
And don’t tell me that an unsupervised group of high schoolers are more responsible than a frat at MIT. </p>
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They can if they have consent. And your consent may be contained in the lease or rental agreement you signed. If I were an Ocean City landlord renting to teenagers, you’d be darned sure that I would have a clause in the lease saying that the tenants agree that the police may enter the premises.</p>
<p>OP, have you read the lease?</p>
<p>Consolation,</p>
<p>I really don’t see a whole lot that is wrong with the OP’s idea. Yes, there are risks involved, but kids will be kids. I can remember doing the same thing that the OP is thinking about doing when I was 16-my friends and I routinely went to the beach, got a house, and partied heavily with no real negative consequences other than a bad hangover the next day. At any given weekend there were dozens (slow weeks) to thousands (spring break) of people the same age at the same beach doing the same thing, and the vast majority of them made it through their stay without incident.</p>
<p>As I said earlier, as long as no one is insane and decides to drive or swim or do anything completely reckless while they are under the influence, they should be fine. And if they do get busted, chances are it will be a valuable learning experience for them. The fact is, this kid seems like he/she has his/her heart set on doing this, and it is doubtful that anyone on this board will be able to convince them to do otherwise. It would probably be more beneficial for this kid to hear advice on how to be responsible, recognize the signs of alcohol poisoning, or avoid placing his/herself in a situation where the police could become involved.</p>
<p>Right, there’s not a whole lot that is wrong.
[Revere</a> man, students face charges - The Boston Globe](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/05/23/revere_man_students_face_charges/]Revere”>http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/05/23/revere_man_students_face_charges/)</p>
<p>Here’s another good site: [Student</a> Alcohol Management - SAM Spady Foundation](<a href=“http://www.samspadyfoundation.org/]Student”>http://www.samspadyfoundation.org/)</p>
<p>Sam Spady, Colorado State sophomore, died as a result of a night of binge drinking. Her parents have created an educational foundation so fewer parents will experience their nightmare. I worry about the invincible attitude of young people. Nobody’s bulletproof.</p>
<p>Chedva,</p>
<p>That sucks for the parent, but really isn’t a risk for the OP as he/she will be at a beach house and away from any adult supervision (aka liability). The drinking tickets aren’t much to worry about, either. Lots of people get them (I got two in high school), and aside from being a pain to deal with, most colleges really don’t care about them.</p>
<p>Curse, where I live the police can and will asset charges of endangering a minor, if someone, even another minor provides alchohol to a minor. Of course the liklihood is much greater if there is an accident, fatality, etc – BUT I suspect an endangering a minor charge is going to be a problem for anyone who wants to be a teacher or involved with children.</p>