Sharing an article from the Chronicle September 15 2014

 “What You Need to Know About the Past 7 Days”

“Just a Thought”

“As legislators, deans, parents, and students debate what to do about the problem of sexual assaults on college campuses—many of them all but awash in alcohol—maybe it’s time to take a step back and consider the bigger picture. Maybe it’s time for Americans to start teaching their teenagers to drink responsibly (if they want to drink), and time to rethink our drinking-age laws—which, let’s face it, seem to have done little more than create a thriving fake-ID industry.”

 

“Really, where has the current approach gotten us? High-school kids sneak off to drink under stadium bleachers and in parks that closed at dusk. College students party in their rooms and at fraternities and in bars. If you didn’t hear it earlier this week, listen to the piece that NPR’s Patti Neighmond did on college drinking for Morning Edition. Sharon Levy, director of the Adolescent Substance Abuse Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, summed up the situation this way: "We’ve created a situation in which there is an expectation that drinking—and in fact heavy drinking—is just part of the college experience."”

 

“And then—studies are clear on this, as are stories from virtually every campus—assaults happen. To say nothing of car crashes and hospital visits for alcohol poisoning.”

“Try as they might, colleges are probably not going to solve the sexual-assault problem by requiring that students say "yes" to each caress (as California law may soon require) or by becoming more adept at the due-process requirements of rape charges. Nor are they going to tame the out-of-control campus-drinking culture as long as drinking by anyone under 21 has to be a wink-wink "secret." Maybe it’s time for a fresh start on this one.”

 

Read it all here: http://chronicle.com/article/What-You-Need-to-Know-About/148771/?cid=wb&utm_source=wb&utm_medium=en

Interesting week eh?

Dr Flavius A B Akerele III

The ETeam