September 29, 2011
The recent decision by Hamilton College to take the audacious initiative and enforce the statutes of New York State vis-à-vis the alcohol policy has earned, without much surprise, the animosity of most of the student body. I, however, believe the school is being lenient; alcohol is a dangerous drug, responsible for 75,000 deaths per year according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (to put in perspective, breast cancer claims just over 40,000 lives per year), with all available statistics strongly suggesting a link between early drinking and later alcohol dependency. Therefore, I believe our College should ban the possession of all alcoholic beverages by all students while on campus, regardless of whether or not they have attained legal age.
To begin, popular anecdotal myth holds that children who are exposed and trusted with alcohol at younger ages—either by their parents or at college—end up with safer drinking habits. Proponents of this theory point to Europe, where teenagers as young as 16 can purchase alcohol, as exemplifying smart alcohol policy. However, studies by the Pacific Institute and the University of Minnesota demonstrate that European teenagers and young adults have higher rates of alcoholism and are more apt to binge drink than their peers in the United States. Furthermore, there is a direct correlation between drinking age and per-capita alcohol consumption when comparing across countries. Rates of drinking and driving are higher in the United States, but the studies note that this is explained by stronger public transportation infrastructures, not safer drinking habits. In short, all evidence suggests that America’s alcohol problems would be best ameliorated by raising, rather than lowering, the drinking age.
Secondly, those in favor of allowing college students the freedom to consume alcohol invariably argue on behalf of their supposed maturity pay no mind to the fact that a culture that celebrates perpetual adolescence has pushed back such expectations as raising a family into the thirties. Indeed, studies on the human brain suggest that the parts associated with decision-making and emotions do not fully mature until the mid-twenties. In this same vein, the removal of alcohol from campus would certainly help curtail the instances of sexual assault at Hamilton, as all evidence suggests the vast majority of college sexual assaults occur when one or both parties have been drinking.
Furthermore, the blithe assumption that prohibition would merely drive drinking into a dangerous underground is unsubstantiated; though the 1920s are often cited as evidence as to the contrary, US per-capita deaths due to alcohol use were on average 40% lower during prohibition than during the 1910s according to the US Department of Commerce. Also, with a de jure dry campus, Hamilton can expect fewer prospective drinkers in future incoming classes. Whil this might, perhaps, negatively impact our coveted low acceptance rate, I assert that prospective students who choose not to apply because our college bans alcohol are students we certainly do not want attending our college in the first place.
A year and half ago, after the College promised to crack down on the Class and Charter Day worship of Bacchus, an editorial appeared in The Spectator, asserting both the right to imbibe freely and the intentions of doing so regardless of college policies. Perhaps we are fighting a losing battle in attempting to discourage such reckless behavior, but at least we can discourage such libertines from attending our institution.