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Topic Summary

Posted by: pmp6nl
« on: November 19, 2008, 09:44:22 PM »

Fargo is drunk.

You know, I'm sort of sick of the Herald making you pay for old stories.  What's up with that?

Forum communications seems to think its a good idea.  Of course many other large newspapers know that free is better.
Posted by: Sal Atticum
« on: November 19, 2008, 01:40:48 PM »

Fargo is drunk.

You know, I'm sort of sick of the Herald making you pay for old stories.  What's up with that?
Posted by: Admiral Ackbar
« on: October 25, 2008, 10:28:02 AM »

Posted by: pmp6nl
« on: October 13, 2008, 04:40:10 PM »

Non-religious substance free housing would be a good step in the right direction.
Posted by: Sal Atticum
« on: October 11, 2008, 11:19:26 AM »

Having a sub-free house on campus would be awesome.  I think having theme houses in general would be awesome, but I don't know how it would fly at a big school.  I don't know if we have any sub-free orgs at UND--maybe SADD?  It would be even better if it wasn't strictly religious, which would make it open to people who are more edge than mainstream.

I don't have time to read it now, but this page probably has pertinent references.

Here's someone local who is on your side:
Quote
Trudy Soli, East Grand Forks, letter: Even 21 may be too young to drink
Trudy Soli, Grand Forks Herald
Published Saturday, October 11, 2008
EAST GRAND FORKS — First off, I agree with college student Danielle Thompson of Moorhead hat there is a huge problem with underage drinking (“Lower drinking age to ease problem drinking,” Viewpoint, Page A4, Sept. 25).

But the way to solve it isn’t by lowering the drinking age to 18.

I grew up in the 1970s when the drinking age was 18, and it wasn’t better when it was lower. The only thing this accomplished was that students came to school smelling of alcohol and/or hung over and may have been more apt to drink during lunch breaks.

Also during this time, deaths skyrocketed in connection with alcohol-related accidents. The age was raised back to 21 and shouldn’t be lowered. In fact, maybe we should consider a higher age limit.

If the legal drinking age were lowered to 18, then I truly believe that even younger kids would experiment with alcohol. I don’t believe deaths would be prevented. Instead, I think more deaths would occur with drinking and driving, overindulging and just plain carelessness with alcohol.

I believe the problem with underage drinking isn’t the age itself, but parents and society. A number of parents seem to have the attitude that “kids are going to drink anyway, why not give them a ‘safe’ place to drink” or “kids are going to drink, but we’ll take their keys and then they won’t drive” and so on.

Who is enforcing the rules? Who is enforcing the law? Who are these parents helping? Certainly not the kids.

So when I hear someone saying we should lower the drinking age and have parents teach their children responsible drinking habits, then I have to ask: Why aren’t parents teaching those responsible drinking habits now?

Let’s try fixing the real problem rather than creating more.

Trudy Soli
Link
Posted by: pmp6nl
« on: October 09, 2008, 05:48:41 PM »

It will be a really hard process.  We would be working against the media and basically what is thrown at kids for years... that drinking alcohol is so cool and you have to do it as soon as possible.

The media really plays it up.  Have there been any big studies on this?

I do like your point on allowing people to have a place that is substance free, should they choose to live there... requiring people to live there would cause a lot of issues I would bet.
Posted by: Sal Atticum
« on: September 29, 2008, 07:14:18 PM »

Quote
The Harvard researchers indicate, however, that age may not be the chief factor. Their study found a strong link between heavy alcohol use and drinking cultures at many colleges, where there are heavily marketed cheap alcohol, high-volume sellers and weak enforcement of the law by the schools, states or both.

Well duh, I didnt need research to tell me that.

Quote
A few schools, including the University of Nebraska and the University of Rhode Island, have taken sensible steps like banning beer kegs, offering housing where alcohol and tobacco are banned and requiring students to take courses on responsible drinking.

That may be a good mid point between total bans and just allowing whatever.
I'd like to dream that someday we can survive without having a drinking age, and without having to require courses on how to drink responsibly--you would think that, with alcohol use so ingrained in our culture, that certain behavioral aspects would get picked up, but that's not the case.  So rather than parents talking to their kids about alcohol and being there during the initial experiments, the clam up about it, and you get the same results as abstinence-only education: kids doing stupid things and not understanding why they are stupid.

We had a substance-free house at my undergrad where you could apply to live.  Nobody was ever forced to, because that would have ruined it (sending people with drinking problems into a house full of non-drinkers doesn't really work).

Quote
Quote
The 21-year-old floor is not the problem. It is the culture of drinking at school.

Exactly, culture.
[/quote]

Where do we start?  I'm too old to have an effect on my peers, mostly because my peers are all old like me.  I didn't drink until I was 21 (because I didn't feel like I was ready, and didn't want the hassle of avoiding police), and I'd like to think I was setting an example by that, but mostly people probably just thought I was weird.
Posted by: pmp6nl
« on: September 18, 2008, 12:50:33 PM »

See, it's funny because UND at least is supposed to be entirely dry.

That is state wide, too bad it doesn't happen that way.
Posted by: Sal Atticum
« on: September 18, 2008, 12:43:15 PM »

See, it's funny because UND at least is supposed to be entirely dry.
Posted by: pmp6nl
« on: September 18, 2008, 12:39:09 PM »

Quote
The Harvard researchers indicate, however, that age may not be the chief factor. Their study found a strong link between heavy alcohol use and drinking cultures at many colleges, where there are heavily marketed cheap alcohol, high-volume sellers and weak enforcement of the law by the schools, states or both.

Well duh, I didnt need research to tell me that.

Quote
A few schools, including the University of Nebraska and the University of Rhode Island, have taken sensible steps like banning beer kegs, offering housing where alcohol and tobacco are banned and requiring students to take courses on responsible drinking.

That may be a good mid point between total bans and just allowing whatever.

Quote
The 21-year-old floor is not the problem. It is the culture of drinking at school.

Exactly, culture.
Posted by: Sal Atticum
« on: September 17, 2008, 11:30:05 AM »

NYT
Quote
Colleges and Binge Drinking

Published: September 16, 2008

It’s part of an educator’s job to spark debate, but a group of about 130 college presidents is on the wrong track with its suggestion that the nation reconsider the legal drinking age of 21.

The college executives are right to be alarmed about the binge drinking that besieges their campuses. But there is no proof that easier access to alcohol would solve that problem, and there is strong evidence that college administrations could do a lot more than they are doing to combat the alcohol epidemic.

Lowering the legal drinking age would put more young drunken drivers on the roads and could exacerbate drinking in high schools. There is also evidence that brains still develop up to age 30, particularly in men.

The educators say they are not advocating a change per se, only a “dispassionate debate,” but the intent seems clear. And while they represent just a relative handful of the 3,500 or so college chief executives across the country, they include well-known institutions, like Duke, Dartmouth, Middlebury and Ohio State.

It is not difficult to understand their sense of crisis over binge drinking, in which males consume at least five drinks in a row and females, at least four. Two in five students at four-year colleges binge drink, according to the 14-year College Alcohol Study by the Harvard School of Public Health.

The Harvard researchers indicate, however, that age may not be the chief factor. Their study found a strong link between heavy alcohol use and drinking cultures at many colleges, where there are heavily marketed cheap alcohol, high-volume sellers and weak enforcement of the law by the schools, states or both.

A few schools, including the University of Nebraska and the University of Rhode Island, have taken sensible steps like banning beer kegs, offering housing where alcohol and tobacco are banned and requiring students to take courses on responsible drinking.

Since the drinking age was set at 21 in 1984, research shows alcohol-related traffic deaths among those 18 to 20 years old have declined by 11 percent, even after accounting for safer vehicles.

Certainly, surreptitious drinking can lead to excessive drinking, but that does not justify the college executives’ conclusion that “21 is not working” where binge drinking is concerned. Europe, often cited as an example of controlled use of alcohol by younger people, has binge drinking problems. France, which has long allowed drinking for 16-year-olds, is debating raising the age.

The 21-year-old floor is not the problem. It is the culture of drinking at school.
Posted by: pmp6nl
« on: August 25, 2008, 11:07:59 PM »

Ahhhhh.  I'm closed on new projects right now; looks like this would be a good one for a brand new Psychology or Sociology grad student (hint hint).

Thought I would offer ;)
Posted by: Sal Atticum
« on: August 25, 2008, 04:03:53 PM »

Ahhhhh.  I'm closed on new projects right now; looks like this would be a good one for a brand new Psychology or Sociology grad student (hint hint).
Posted by: pmp6nl
« on: August 25, 2008, 03:48:24 PM »

I know that.  I was kidding and saying you could do an underground survey ;)
Posted by: Sal Atticum
« on: August 25, 2008, 03:17:21 PM »

I can agree to some more serious study, but it's going to be difficult to get some good data unless this is tried somewhere in this country...which can't be done with the way the law is structured the way it is.

I think many states would be very willing to consider this, if their federal highway money didn't depend on the drinking age.  That's a separate issue, and has apparently been a very good way for the federal government to control the states without actually ordering them to do anything.

Well I guess you found a new underground dissertation project.

Dude, I'm not saying I'm right and you're wrong.  I just wanted to see what people had to say.
anything
realistic