One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking
chronicle.com
One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking
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Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking
#2"Even going to the tape, though, is not always enough. The mother of the guy in the Santa suit maintained that the police should’ve taken her son, who eventually passed out, back to his room, not to jail. Recounting the story, Mr. Williamson looks momentarily exasperated. He tried to explain, he says, that her son was safer sleeping off his drunkenness under supervision."
It seems the LEOs cannot win when dealing with a mother who 'knows best'
Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking
#3She runs “bartending school” for incoming students during mandatory orientation sessions at Georgia. Handing over a vodka bottle full of water, she asks them to pour what they think is one drink into a 16-ounce cup. After a discussion of alcohol’s physical effects and consequences, she empties the cups into two-ounce shot glasses. What seemed like one drink is often two or three.
In normal countries, teenagers start drinking in a supervised environment (read: Mom and Dad, who won't appreciate that Sonny threw up in his shoe again because he came home way too sozzled to find the toilet bowl), and they start on beer and wine, which makes it much more difficult to overdose. In America the infantilized teenagers go off to college and then proceed to black out on spirits, because spirits are easier to smuggle into the dorm. What could possibly go wrong there?
Also: the American problem of trying to get on top of alcohol abuse by limiting availability, when you would rather limit damage and trust peoples' responsibility. Why not hand out serious prison time for first-time drunk drivers? It would increase road safety so much.
Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking
#4She runs “bartending school” for incoming students during mandatory orientation sessions at Georgia. Handing over a vodka bottle full of water, she asks them to pour what they think is one drink into a 16-ounce cup. After a discussion of alcohol’s physical effects and consequences, she empties the cups into two-ounce shot glasses. What seemed like one drink is often two or three. In normal countries, teenagers start…
In normal countries, the underage drinking also isn't criminalized. It is illegal to sell alcohol to underage persons, but it's not illegal for said underage person to drink it.
That said, I'd love for drunk driving to have harsher penalties. Not jail, but simply driving ban for at least a year with an extended retest (psych eval, as they do in other countries if you lose your license to drunk driving).
Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking
#5"Even going to the tape, though, is not always enough. The mother of the guy in the Santa suit maintained that the police should’ve taken her son, who eventually passed out, back to his room, not to jail. Recounting the story, Mr. Williamson looks momentarily exasperated. He tried to explain, he says, that her son was safer sleeping off his drunkenness under supervision." It seems the LEOs cannot win when dealing wit…
Well, considering he's one of the three people arrested per weekend out of "thousands"... it's arbitrary and ineffective.
Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking
#6She runs “bartending school” for incoming students during mandatory orientation sessions at Georgia. Handing over a vodka bottle full of water, she asks them to pour what they think is one drink into a 16-ounce cup. After a discussion of alcohol’s physical effects and consequences, she empties the cups into two-ounce shot glasses. What seemed like one drink is often two or three. In normal countries, teenagers start…
It would take something short of a drunk driving massacre to get the momentum needed to harshly punish drunk driving.
Like many laws in America a lot of it emotion driven - a lower drinking age would most likely help the college binge drinking problem, but advocating for such a law means someone is going to call you out on trying to turn the children of America into alcoholics.
Likewise, no one wants to be on the other end of the outrage when celebrity/athlete/politician gets 10 years for having a "couple beers" after work (doesn't everyone have a couple beers? thats too harsh! /s).
Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking
#7She runs “bartending school” for incoming students during mandatory orientation sessions at Georgia. Handing over a vodka bottle full of water, she asks them to pour what they think is one drink into a 16-ounce cup. After a discussion of alcohol’s physical effects and consequences, she empties the cups into two-ounce shot glasses. What seemed like one drink is often two or three. In normal countries, teenagers start…
> Why not hand out serious prison time for first-time drunk drivers? It would increase road safety so much.
Research suggests that you might be wrong.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/twitter-politics-drunken-...
> Key quote: “Harsher sanctions to drinking and driving may generate no marginal deterrent effect if drivers’ perceived risks of receiving the punishments are low. Therefore, rather than escalating sanction severity, increasing the probability of detection and/or enforcement may be more effective in reducing drinking and driving.”
Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking
#8She runs “bartending school” for incoming students during mandatory orientation sessions at Georgia. Handing over a vodka bottle full of water, she asks them to pour what they think is one drink into a 16-ounce cup. After a discussion of alcohol’s physical effects and consequences, she empties the cups into two-ounce shot glasses. What seemed like one drink is often two or three. In normal countries, teenagers start…
Blaming the drinking culture itself - that American kids aren't allowed to drink, and when they do, they don't know how - is a common sentiment. It has an easy narrative, and I think it may be true. But I've never seen anyone attempt to actually verify it.
I can construct equally sensible narratives that have nothing to do with the drinking culture. I can also imagine it's not the drinking culture, but the fact that most American kids go away to college. In some other cultures which have more sensible attitudes towards alcohol (and I do think they are more sensible), I think they also tend to stay close to their parents for college.
Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking
#9She runs “bartending school” for incoming students during mandatory orientation sessions at Georgia. Handing over a vodka bottle full of water, she asks them to pour what they think is one drink into a 16-ounce cup. After a discussion of alcohol’s physical effects and consequences, she empties the cups into two-ounce shot glasses. What seemed like one drink is often two or three. In normal countries, teenagers start…
> Why not hand out serious prison time for first-time drunk drivers? It would increase road safety so much. Research suggests that you might be wrong. http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/twitter-politics-drunken-... > Key quote: “Harsher sanctions to drinking and driving may generate no marginal deterrent effect if drivers’ perceived risks of receiving the punishments are low. Therefore, rather than escalating sanctio…
Harsh sentances for murderers also very likely do not prevent murder. But they do keep known murderers in places where the exposure to potential victims is much lower. By doing so, we have a safer world even if we do not have a significant disincentive to commit murder.
Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking
#10She runs “bartending school” for incoming students during mandatory orientation sessions at Georgia. Handing over a vodka bottle full of water, she asks them to pour what they think is one drink into a 16-ounce cup. After a discussion of alcohol’s physical effects and consequences, she empties the cups into two-ounce shot glasses. What seemed like one drink is often two or three. In normal countries, teenagers start…
In normal countries, the underage drinking also isn't criminalized. It is illegal to sell alcohol to underage persons, but it's not illegal for said underage person to drink it. That said, I'd love for drunk driving to have harsher penalties. Not jail, but simply driving ban for at least a year with an extended retest (psych eval, as they do in other countries if you lose your license to drunk driving).
DUI is already at least probation + a significant suspension in most states, at least that's my perception. At best, if there was no accident/injury, you get a provisional driving license that will let you go to/from work, and you'll lose that on a 2nd offense. Plus your insurance will go sky-high. It's really not the slap on the wrist it used to be.
Simple public intoxication or illegal consumption is, in most cases, something you can have expunged if it's a first offense and you pay the bribe^H^H^H^H^H pre-trial diversion fee.