<p>nvdad, We had a similar situation at our hs- pictures of students drinking and smoking weed posted on the web, some with their school logo on the shirts. An administrator said that they weren’t convinced that the students weren’t just posing with props. hahhaha
I think it’s just easier for those in charge to look the other way. Avoids headaches and confrontation.</p>
<p>I am shocked SHOCKED that there are underage kids drinking at colleges. That has been going on for what–300+ years in the USA.</p>
<p>barrons- LOL! Actually, underage drinking in college has only been a problem for 22 years.</p>
<p>And the real problem is binge drinking - and the extent to which that currently occurs; it HAS become more wide-spread in just the past few decades, esp among young and even pre- teens. To turn a blind eye or dismiss it with a “kids will be kids” attitude is no longer acceptable.</p>
<p>I would also add that the solution is not stricter enforcement at colleges, of individuals who in most other aspects are considered to be “legal” adults (I do agree with the 18-20 year olds there), and by a business whose economic interests are at stake by stricter enforcement efforts; the real problem is that the binge-drinking mentality that exists at many colleges was already firmly in place even before these students arrived, and that is where stricter enforcement efforts should be.</p>
<p>I think although all the articles that agree with me are on pdfs so I can’t link to them
that the increase of inappropriate sexual activity and substance use is a reaction to increased stressors on young people
Just as my daughter who had an overactive nervous system as a child and intrepreted a friendly pat as a shove , would have to be jiggled so her sensory system could “shut down” long enough for her to go to sleep-
I think that teens are using sexual contact and drinking as a way to help them deal with the increased presure of their daily life-
Most kids won’t have more appropriate skills unless we actually teach them
I think as adult, we aren’t fully aware of how much more stressful life is than it was for us 30 years ago.
<a href=“http://www.jointogether.org/news/research/summaries/2004/study-binge-drinking-a-of.html[/url]”>http://www.jointogether.org/news/research/summaries/2004/study-binge-drinking-a-of.html</a></p>
<p>“I think that teens are using sexual contact and drinking as a way to help them deal with the increased presure of their daily life…Most kids won’t have more appropriate skills unless we actually teach them”</p>
<p>Although I agree with this in part, it feels like we are overlooking something by just saying that kids today lead a more stressful life. There is so much involved here that all needs to be addressed at the same time in order to really understand the big picture and to bring about any effective change. It’s important to focus on better enforcement and less availability at younger ages, equally important to focus on earlier education, but bottom line, and the most difficult, we need to understand the real underlying causes better (and I think understanding the factors that do cause stress is a part of this but not the whole picture).</p>
<p>Personally, I’d love to see changes in advertising, similar to what’s happening with smoking. Ads are a large factor in promoting the attitude that drinking in general is something “cool” - and also that drinking is a way to relieve stress.</p>
<p>I don’t think any students have responded, so this is what it’s like where I am.</p>
<p>My school does not have any official rules against underage drinking. They are super careful about student privacy, so maybe that’s the reason. There’s no alcohol allowed in public areas, but they don’t care if you drink in a private room as long as you’re not destructive or unreasonably loud after, say, 2 AM. You cannot always find alcohol if you’re underage. On certain nights you can probably find a party to go to. Many dorm parties are hosted by underage students, but it’s certainly not easy to get alcohol underage from stores (someone over 21 is normally used or a good fake ID). </p>
<p>This isn’t a party school, and kids don’t usually get absurdly drunk. People pregame at one party or in their room and then go to another party. If that party is shut down (because of noise, if it’s in a dorm), people will either go home or go find another party, if they aren’t too drunk. At least in my experience, people are not at all ashamed to tell someone to stop drinking or to get some water, and the other person will generally follow that advice. Maybe it has to do with the school, but most people here don’t drink too stupidly. People get sick sometimes, but it’s not a goal or anything. Mostly there’s dancing, laughing, and fooling around. The frats have mostly beer with some harder alcohol, too. Parties in dorm rooms normally have an assortment of alcohols and mixers (e.g. vodka, rum, beer, coke, cranberry juice, orange juice, gingerale, etc.), or they have a punch out. It’s not uncommon for a bar to be set up with an appointed bartender. </p>
<p>I think most kids at my school drink because life here is so stressful during the week. While drinking, it’s easy to forget about exams, papers, and other pressures. We have shuttles and vans all night to get people home, and people tend to be pretty safe with their drinking. I know that this isn’t the case at a lot of schools. At other schools I’ve spent time at, people are throwing up in trash cans while continuing to drink. Actions like that are completely ridiculous, and I can’t imagine seeing that at my school, but I guess it’s just a difference in atmosphere and a difference between the types of students at each school. </p>
<p>My parents didn’t allow me to drink in high school. When I was little my father would offer me a sip of his beer, and I could have a glass of wine or champaign during special events after, say, age 16. I do drink now, and I am underage. I drink to get drunk and to the point where I am quite impaired, in both body and mind. I know a lot of kids who don’t drink, drink rarely, or drink strictly socially, and they’re not at all made fun of or looked down on by students who do drink. People who drink often, while alone, or who act stupid while drunk are looked down on. </p>
<p>Anyway, it’s obviously different at different schools, but this is what it’s like for me.</p>
<ol>
<li> As far as I can tell, very little about underage drinking has changed since my youth, except there is a lot more of it because all 18-20 year-olds are underage, and less of it because more kids don’t drink at all. When I was 19, I could have written exactly what corranged did, except alcohol was a part of all sorts of official functions. Also – it was a lot easier to talk to girls if you had had a few drinks, and they had, too. And much easier to go beyond talking with them.</li>
</ol>
<p>I think teenagers like to get high, and are not especially good at evaluating risks. I don’t think that has changed much in several generations.</p>
<ol>
<li> I would love to see some sort of side-by-side comparison of, say McGill (drinking age in Quebec = 18) or University of Toronto (Ontario = 19) and an equivalent large American university like Penn State or Michican.</li>
</ol>
<p>One of my daughter’s closest friends goes to McGill. The official orientation included a tour of bars in Montreal. In the orientation packet, on university letterhead, the responsible office helpfully suggested that if you were not 18 yet, you should contact them to make certain your university ID said that you were, so that you would not be denied entrance to any of the orientation events off campus. Can anyone imagine an American public university doing that? What a difference a slightly different culture and legal system make! (After four days of orientation, Friend called my daughter and said she was joining the campus Communists because they didn’t drink, and she couldn’t stand talking to any more drunk boys. She got over it, though.)</p>
<p>It seems to me that the big difference with legal drinking at 18 was that obtaining alcohol and consuming it was NOT the focus of an evening, it was incidental. You didn’t start out drunk, there was no rush to become drunk. The drinking was not underground.</p>
<p>The drinking age is 18 here but the drinks are too expensive for kids so they guzzle a few alco-pop drinks or beers and THEN go into town two sheets to the wind already. Parents are quite lax about underage drinking but the police are not. My older son has been breathalized once, my younger son–THREE times in one year. (Passed with flying colors all three times).</p>
<p>Evidence from the UK and elsewhere suggests that the binge drinking and resulting loutishness hasbeen made worse by the lower drinking age.</p>
<p>OK, what about the idea that the school week now ends on Thursday and anyone who offers or teaches a Friday class had better not expect great attendance (or attention by those who are there)? We were in Australia on sabbatical in spring 2000 and this was certainly the norm there. Returned to find US students were also embracing this tradition. Back in the “olden days (early 70s)” even with numerous protest marches held, kids went to class on Fridays.</p>
<p>Corranged, thanks for the input from a student! Your comments sound a lot like those of my son’s. It would be great to hear from more students on this issue.</p>
<p>Corranged, thanks for the input from a student! Your comments sound a lot like my son’s. It would be great to hear from more students on this issue.</p>
<p>I’m a fan. Nothing’s worse than being a victim of your own social inhibitions.</p>
<p>Doubleplay, I’m not a student, obviously, but, I almost wonder if the drinking age shouldn’t be lowered, to, say, 12 or something. That way, the interest and attraction perhaps can be explored long before there are available car keys and other responsibilities - perhaps parents can provide some guidance long before the new drinker is away at college, inebriated on new freedoms, and subject to overindulging in newly acquired freedoms, and therefore leading to alcohol poisoning and other issues. </p>
<p>Having said that, I absolutely dispise alcohol in all its forms. I cannot stand the taste, sight, or smell of it. I won’t walk into a bar under any circumstances, ever, and, I won’t be around people who are drinking. I have no moral objection to it - it’s just that I see no purpose in it, and it’s not appealing to me. Alcohol has no nutritional value, and no health benefits; it tastes disgusting, and smells horrible. It’s expensive. And I cannot see where or how drinking ever leads to anything good. Even considering it as benignly as possible it seems like a total waste of time and money, and it impairs people. </p>
<p>Sometimes I will take clients to dinner, and because it’s pretty obvious that sometimes people want to drink - even though for the life of me I cannot understand why - I will order a bottle of wine to the table. My clients will drink it, and sometimes I’ll even order a second bottle. But I do not understand why they want the wine in the first place. It adds nothing to the dining experience and certainly doesn’t lend any value to whatever discussions we’re having. All it does is waste money, dump empty calories into people who are already in less than ideal physical condition, and cause me to worry that they got home o.k. following dinner. </p>
<p>I seriously don’t understand how drinking beer, wine, or hard liquors is any different from smoking cigarettes, or using illegal drugs such as cocaine, heroin, etc. I do not see how it serves any purpose whatsoever, other than to achieve some sort of “high”. In that case, why not make cocaine, heroin, etc. legal as well? I just don’t get the difference.</p>
<p>Good ole days at UVa</p>
<p>""The biggest myth involving the UVA Honor Code has to do with its beginning. The much-repeated story - as any doe-eyed first-year student can recite - goes something like this:</p>
<p>In 1840, a student shot a professor during a drunken melee on the Lawn. The murder caused a great deal of tension and ill-will between the students and faculty. In an attempt to alleviate those bad feelings, an Honor Pledge was instituted to express confidence in the students. Every student would heneceforth participate in an honor system that forbids lying, cheating, and stealing.</p>
<p>That’s an inspiring story, and one you’ll hear told ad nauseam by the University administration, student tour guides, aluni, and even members of the Honor Committee. Only problem: the story’s not true.</p>
<p>Yes, there was a murder, and yes, an Honor Pledge about two years later. But the rest is pure Hoo-lore.</p>
<p>Here’s the real scoop on the origin of the UVA honor system.</p>
<p>A student did shoot and kill a professor on Thursday night, November 12, 1840. A gang of rowdy students were partying hard that evening to commemorate the anniversary of a violent rebellion by the Student Military Company which had taken place four years earlier.</p>
<p>The celebration involved a lot of drinking alcohol and shooting pistols on the Lawn - activities forbidden by the school’s strict policies. When he ran out of his home, Pavilion Ten, to quell the disturbance, law professor John A.G. Davis was shot in the stomach by a student. he died a few days later. The guilty student turned himself in, was arrested, but ultimately escaped. It was rumored that he eventually committed suicide."</p>
<p>I’m against under-age drinking since it’s illegal and there’s really no sound reason anyone NEEDS to drink alcohol in the first place. </p>
<p>The question then comes down to what the drinking age should be. When I went to college in the early 70s the drinking age varied by state - Colorado was 18 for 3.2 beer and wine, Arizona was 19 for everything, California was 21 for everything. Gradually all of the states migrated toward age 21 (with some variants in the rules for some states) because they saw the problems that resulted from the lower drinking age. The problem with age 18 is that there are many 18 y/o and even some 19 y/o still in HS and it can make the acquisition of alcohol to all HS students even worse than it already is. The idea is that by the time one is aged 21 they’ve had a chance to mature more and are therefore in a better position to make correct decisions regarding alcohol, drinking/driving, etc. I think this is true for some people but on the other hand, there are plenty of examples of people aged 18 who are more mature than some people aged 21 and above.</p>
<p>As a dependent living on a military base at the time I turned 18 and during the days of Vietnam, I did find it ironic though that an 18 or 19y/o could be entrusted with an M-16, a tank, a missile, etc. and fight wars, yet couldn’t be entrusted to drink alcohol. </p>
<p>I think binge-drinking is more related to the maturity level of the drinker rather than the lack of ready access to alcohol or being somehow sheltered from it. It’s more about being easily influenced by friends, bravado, and a ‘coming of age’ syndrome. Most binge-drinkers eventually mature out of it and cease the binge-drinking. Unfortunately, some don’t make it out (alcohol poisoning, drunk driving deaths, etc.) and some become alcoholics. I doubt there are that many binge-drinkers who couldn’t find alcohol to drink in moderation if they wanted.</p>
<p>JHS, I can’t give you an official comparison, but a pretty darn accurate unofficial one between Univ. of Toronto and NYU. I have a D at each, along with many nieces, nephews, family friends (students, profs, and administrators). </p>
<p>The situations are like night and day. Kids here (Toronto) are able to get together with a group of friends, go out to a movie or play, then stop at a bar or a campus pub for a few beers afterwards. They are likewise able to go out to a dance, Halloween party (last night), or gathering on campus, without ‘pre-drinking’. They can wait til they get to the event before drinking, if they choose to drink. Drinking is not the first order of business on a night out. This is not the case at NYU. </p>
<p>I cannot tell you the number of times my D at NYU has been unfortunate enough as to experience not only drunken students, but totally obliterated, stumbling, incoherent, and vomitting students in her 3+ years at NYU. Suffice it to say that it has happened on a regular basis since she arrived there in August of 2003. My D has not seen that at U of T. Do kids at U of T drink? Yes. Do some of them get drunk? Also, yes. However, it is an entirely different culture on campus, and the focus is decidedly not ‘let’s all drink as much as we possibly can in as short a period of time as possible’. </p>
<p>Orientation at U of T is dry, in that official orientation events do not include drinking. Alcohol poisoning ‘education’ is covered by every orientation leader and one of the laminated ‘symptom’ cards, similar to the Sam Spady ones, is included in orientation packets. </p>
<p>Is it a perfect system in Ontario? No. Do kids still get drunk? Yes, but it is not anywhere near the same as it is in the States, from our experience, and also from the experience of several friends who have been profs both here and in the States.</p>
<p>latetoschool- I guess you don’t eat candy, either. Wine actually has more nutritional value than the diet sodas which I also enjoy. </p>
<p>I visited my son’s college today. We spent a lot of time in and around the dorm, because H and S were doing some computer engineering. I can tell you that the social life of this large dorm of mainly freshmen revolves completely around alcohol. There was a keg which was installed in one of the dorm rooms (against the rules) which was being iced down for this evening. Discussions centered around the evening parties, “pre-gaming” and who was drunk and staggering the night before. S tells me a majority of the freshmen have fake IDs, and there are bars that are known for not looking too closely at them. Other bars are sort of “reseved” for upper classmen and the bouncers are better at “spotting” the fake IDs. He visited a friend at a Patriot League LAC in central PA last weekend and it sounds like the bar scene wasn’t active (in the middle of nowhere) but the drinking occurred in the dorms and frat houses.</p>
<p>What is my opinion? Underage drinking isn’t going to stop. I want these kids to stay alive. I want them out of cars and not drinking shots. I want to see responsible drinking as the goal.</p>