Newly requiring underage students to take an interactive online course about the risks and effects of alcohol won’t wipe out binge drinking at the University of Kansas. But after two alcohol-related fatalities last spring, KU needed to do something. And more education and awareness can’t hurt. KU also has made changes to encourage students to get help with alcohol-related emergencies and to notify parents when their students violate drug and alcohol policies. The father of one of the KU students put it bluntly in the Denver Post: “One week of fraternity living killed him. He overdrank. Kids have got to understand alcohol is the worst.”
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73 Comments
But thank GOD those college kids didn’t smoke!
Actually Pmom we don’t know that they weren’t smokers. Smoking is slower but just as deadly in many cases.
Alcohol is quicker and sometimes as in the young man who prompted this action, you don’t get a chance to do it over.
Don’t know how anyone could disagree with this.
Please.
The kids are alright.
Smoking is about 40 years slower and doesn’t have any collateral damage, such as DUI, killing people from drunken rages, divorce, etc, etc. But thanks for totally missing the point gram.
Pmom I have a 54 year old sis-in-law. She is dying from the affects of smoking since she was 16. I just don’t buy the story you try to give us about the dangers of smoking.
Her kidneys are all but gone and her doc says it is the result of smoking. She had heart surgery two weeks ago. The result of smoking.
She coughs like my dad did after spending years in the mines.
54 years old. No I didn’t miss the point. If you choose to smoke. Go for it. But don’t expect to spread misinformation without being challenged.
Alcohol is a scourge on this country. We worry so much about smokers, but we turn a blind eye to the carnage from booze. It makes no sense.
More scare tactics.
I know my kids will drink. They will probably do it before they are 21. I have had in depth discussions with them about what are safe amounts to drink and to listen to your body. Being knock down drunk is never fun and the next day is even worse. The most important thing I told them is that when you drive buzzed, you are driving drunk. If they feel even a little tipsy and tired to drink soda and water and wait it out, or to call a cab or me. I will get them no matter what time it is or where they are.
Whether or not one cosumes alcohol is a matter of personal choice but the consequenses of drinking should be made abundantly clear.
janabanana
Posted August 31, 2009 at 9:09 am | Permalink
More scare tactics.
How so?
the 21 year old drinking age doesn’t stop anyone from drinking, it just drives it to the shadows where people do stupider things than usual
I think most parents (the ones I’ve talked to on this subject) make their teenagers aware we will come anytime, any place, no questions asked to ensure their safety.
Here’s where the reality comes in –
We’re telling sober people and expecting them to make good decisions when they’re less than sober, trusting they will evaluate the situation accurately. The alcohol they consumed altered their decision-making processes and their ability to evaluate their impairment.
The young person away at college tests the limits, maybe for the first time. Peer pressure at young ages is powerful.
Education is vital! There can’t ever be too much emphasis on the effects of alcohol, and it should never be seen as a scare tactic. Teach them as much and as often as possible.
Heavy drinking is a sure way to find yourself in a pine box.
ANTI
Posted August 31, 2009 at 10:31 am | Permalink
Heavy drinking is a sure way to find yourself in a pine box
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It can also be suicide on the installment plan
Pulling the personal effects out of a 19 year old pants pocket and doing inventory, after they committed suicide (drinking blues) was the least favorite of my duties while serving in the military.
BlueJay
Posted August 31, 2009 at 7:59 am | Permalink
Please.
The kids are alright.
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You cant seriously be advocating that the dangers of alcohol not be presented. Sounds like you don’t want the issue addressed to those that are most at risk.
“Being knock down drunk is never fun ”
I guess individual experiences vary?
Freebird1971
Posted August 31, 2009 at 10:36 am | Permalink
BlueJay
Posted August 31, 2009 at 7:59 am | Permalink
Please.
The kids are alright.
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Just remember chickens do come home to roost.
Look, a kid who drinks SO much that they die of alcohol poisoning has likely been sheltered too much from the affects of alcohol in the first place.
BlueJay
Posted August 31, 2009 at 10:41 am | Permalink
Look, a kid who drinks SO much that they die of alcohol poisoning has likely been sheltered too much from the affects of alcohol in the first place
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Then why do you have a problem with the facts being presented?
For sure heavy drinking will kill — brain cells, the cells of vital internal organs — the physical effects of long-term drinking aren’t pretty. The social costs either — many jobs lost, marriages and families jeopardized because of drinking
Drinking doesn’t have to be heavy to kill or have long-lasting effects, and sometimes alcohol can kill quickly. Arm our young people with all the knowledge we can. Like the thread title says, it “can’t hurt.”
Linda,
Here is one subject you and I seem to see eye to eye on.
“Then why do you have a problem with the facts being presented?”
I don’t. But there is also over protectiveness to consider. I would NEVER send a kid off on their own to college unless I knew they already had some experience with drinking. And I KNOW that sounds bad to say. But I think with these college deaths you are seeing kids having first experiences with something they have been sheltered out of better knowing.
But there is also over protectiveness to consider. I would NEVER send a kid off on their own to college unless I knew they already had some experience with drinking.
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So you are saying it’s ok for my kid to get drunk? Hopefully you are a more responsible parent than that. I truly think you are.
“So you are saying it’s ok for my kid to get drunk?”
I’m saying kids should have some real life experience with things before they are sent off on their own.
Blue Jay,
The expierence you let your child have in exepriencing drinking could be fatal,not only to themselves but others as well
BlueJay
Posted August 31, 2009 at 11:10 am | Permalink
“So you are saying it’s ok for my kid to get drunk?”
I’m saying kids should have some real life experience with things before they are sent off on their own
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So you think it’s ok then
“The expierence you let your child have in exepriencing drinking ..”
My son has not yet had any drinking experience.
So far as I know anyway. But I would rather he have any such experiences while I am still nearby.
I knew this was not going to be popular or easily defended when I took this position. But the fact of it is, some parents shelter their children TOO much from the real world.
I knew this was not going to be popular or easily defended when I took this position. But the fact of it is, some parents shelter their children TOO much from the real world
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But don’t you think it would be better to present the facts so they can make an informed choice? Not that it will alwayys be the right choice.
Blue Jay,
Please don’t think I’m telling you how to raise your son,I’m not. This subject is one I know way more about than I would like. I am just very passionate about keeping people from making the same mistakes I made.
“But don’t you think it would be better to present the facts so they can make an informed choice?”
There is no more informed choice than first hand experience.
Ultimately it is BlueJay’s right to teach his son as he sees fit.
I don’t think BlueJay is proposing giving his son a bottle of Jack and saying “knock yourself out, here are the keys to car!”
There’s lots to consider.
Once I read that in some European countries where wine is served to everyone at meals drinking doesn’t have the same forbidden allure it does where it’s outlawed for people until they reach a certain age. Then I read that there were a large number of alcohol-dependent people in those countries. Coupled with some proof that the effects of drinking (whether it’s heavy or not) are cumulative, it makes sense that the younger a person began consuming alcohol the younger they may experience physical effects (could include damage to one’s organs and dependency). So, do we put emphasis on making it something that isn’t forbidden and desired because of that, or the cumulative effects?
Perhaps we make sure they are taught all of this! We make sure they are exposed to all the information available.
I don’t have the answers! But since this thread is about educating young people to the effects of alcohol I’ll just stick to agreeing that no amount of education on any subject is wasted and share the opinion that KU needed to do something and this won’t hurt a thing.
Will it help? The minimum they can count is a better informed drunk. Like the people who still smoke, they’ll do it forewarned of the potential hazards.
ANTI
Posted August 31, 2009 at 11:24 am | Permalink
Ultimately it is BlueJay’s right to teach his son as he sees fit.
I don’t think BlueJay is proposing giving his son a bottle of Jack and saying “knock yourself out, here are the keys to car!”
—————————————————–
I’m not saying that he will,in fact I’m positive he won’t but what is wrong with presenting the facts before hand?
I’m not saying that he will,in fact I’m positive he won’t but what is wrong with presenting the facts before hand?
==========================================
Nothing at all.
There is no certain way to prevent these tragedies.
However, I think presenting the facts along side experience within a controlled environment may give the youth a better grip of the possibilities. While stressing moderation.
I would never send my child out to drive on an icy road without first taking them to a large icy parking lot to learn how that car will react in said conditions. Also, explaining to them the “whys & hows”.
I guess it’s my personal bias on this subject that is coloring my viewpoint. I just don’t want anyone to gothrough the things I’ve gone through.
“I don’t think BlueJay is proposing giving his son a bottle of Jack and saying “knock yourself out, here are the keys to car!”
CERTAINLY not. But think about this.
Wouldn’t it be just as dangerous, in a different way, to send a kid who has been sheltered from alcohol (and other things for that matter) off to college? I think that is what some of these parents may have done.
MY experience as a parent has taught me that from the time kids are 2 years old, you can tell them “don’t don’t don’t” til you are blue in the face and the effect will be the first time they get the chance they’re gonna do.
Freebird1971
Posted August 31, 2009 at 11:39 am | Permalink
I guess it’s my personal bias on this subject that is coloring my viewpoint. I just don’t want anyone to gothrough the things I’ve gone through.
=================================
That is understandable and should be used as a teaching tool. Our experiences should be passed on to our children to help guide them.
MY experience as a parent has taught me that from the time kids are 2 years old, you can tell them “don’t don’t don’t” til you are blue in the face and the effect will be the first time they get the chance they’re gonna do
————————————————-
Agreed, but there is a fine line between letting them get experience and enabling.
Wouldn’t it be just as dangerous, in a different way, to send a kid who has been sheltered from alcohol (and other things for that matter) off to college? I think that is what some of these parents may have done.
===============================
Exactly.
I had experience with booze before college, my room mate did not. I spent a semester playing babysitter in order to keep him alive.
Agreed, but there is a fine line between letting them get experience and enabling.
====================================
Yes, I agree.
I should say that I don’t have a child near this age, so I my opinions may change in the future.
ANTI
Posted August 31, 2009 at 11:58 am | Permalink
I should say that I don’t have a child near this age, so I my opinions may change in the future
———————————————–
Being the father of a 25 and 28 yr old I can assure you they will change.
So many cultural factors are in the mix, some of them counter-intuitive and counter-productive.
Good Mormons and Muslims are taught strict abstinence; but those who do drink tend to have a much higher incidence of alcoholism. Meanwhile, cultural Jews tend to share wine for all family members, even a thimble-sized cup of Mogen David for the youngest, and have one of the lowest rates of alcoholism. Perhaps it’s the Forbidden Fruit mindset that alcohol use into a Rite of Passage; I dunno. Remove the mystique about alcohol and perhaps a kid can deal with the cognitive dissonance between “Just say no” for 21 years automatically turning into “Please drink responsibly.”
Ok, KU, Close but no Cigar. I think all students should be required to take a comprehensive Drug Education Course.
Lets not stop with alcohol. Educate them on every recreational substance that kids and young adults experiment with. Alcohol, Tobacco, Marijuana, LSD, Shrooms, Ecstasy, Cocaine, Opiates, Meth, etc. etc. and the way each individual drug affects ones mind and body. The habit forming, or addictive nature of each substance, statistical recorded fatalities to each substance, and educate them on why people use any of them to begin with, from an unbiased and factual perspective.
Include Caffeine as well. It’s a drug. Might as well throw in the OTC drugs kids abuse to. Like DXM, and cough syrup.
Might also want to mention, if you guys ever decide to introduce a Drug Education Course. That most deaths result from people taking a cocktail of substances.
Usually a mix of alcohol and pills, is what kills most people.
In essence, I feel my idea of a required and Comprehensive Drug Education Course would be saying. Here, welcome to college kid, you’re here to be educated, and to start off, we’ll tell you how not to die from using and abusing substances that you’re likley to encounter on campus.
Come on, at least be honest about it. There’s probably a good 20 % of kids, who only attend college, just for the college party life experience. Lets not remain in denial over this fact.
Thing is, human beings kinda like being a little tipsy. Ever see kids playing who spin themselves around in circles to get dizzy? Social drinking lubricates cocktail party conversation. Red wine goes good with steak. We toast the bride and groom….
I think conventional wisdom might have it all wrong. I’d rather make it legal for 16-year-olds to drink and prevent ‘em from driving ’til age 25 or so.
BeeJay – MY experience as a parent has taught me that from the time kids are 2 years old, you can tell them “don’t don’t don’t” til you are blue in the face and the effect will be the first time they get the chance they’re gonna do.
————————————–
You usually get what you expect.
My niece told me about a kid she went to college with; something like a sixth-year sophomore because he was spending too much time and making too much money manufacturing counterfeit driver’s licenses so underage students could drink their freshman year.
These are kids who’ve been through a dozen or more years of D.A.R.E indoctrination and “Just Say No” lectures. What’s the University of Kansas gonna tell them them they haven’t already heard?
Just what college kids need- another course. The real solution is at hand and kids can do it themselves. Next time they’re at a party, take video of all the drunk kids doing stupid things and throwing up, and post it all on YouTube for all to see!
Oh, and make sure it gets posted and they see it before the hangover wears off!
Uhm, “Jed” –
Those videos are already all over YouTube.
It’s a badge of honor for some kids.
Another thing the nanny state can do for our children. Won’t make a hill of beans difference, but it would give the state another chance to pad the outrageous school bills.
You don’t want kids to drink and smoke? Then take them to a hospital somewhere and let them see somebody like my dad as he lie there gasping his last breaths of life after losing all his weight to the point of his ribs sticking through his skin. Let them see and smell the slime and vomit that comes out of every opening in the body. Let them hear the heaves as they person tries in vain to breathe. Let them see somebody yellow on deaths doorstep from liver failure. And then tell them that “this bed will be yours someday”. Cancer ain’t “cool”
When our oldest was a junior in highschool his friends brought him home totally wasted. As he was hugging the stool, throwing up and generally totally miserable I got the camera and took a picture. He was alert enough to ask me why I was taking his picture. I told him I wanted him to remember in the morning how much fun he had tonight. And his dad said you have school tomorrow so don’t think you are sleeping in.
He drank after that but never got in that shape again.
I thought kids learned about drugs and alcohol abuse in public school, you know, right after Sex Ed and just before Abortion 101.
For some people seeing others as Kev describes his dad’s last days is a lesson they never forget. For others until they see it for themselves it isn’t real.
We raised three sons and each one was different. In a way I actually agree with BJ that I would rather do their drinking around me so it can be tempered with some good advise.
In Kentucky you can distill up to 5 gallons of moonshine without a license.
And 12 year olds can drink, they just can’t drink in front of their own kids. (Can smoke too, just not in front of der kids.)
Blue Jay, on this subject you and I will completely and totally disagree. When I was in treatment at 15, it was kids like me, who had the parents who thought that ‘as long as they only do it in front of me’ that were there with me. We were drunks before age 20. Drinking before adulthood is DANGEROUS. Bodies are not prepared for that and their minds aren’t either. You take a kid who already has low self esteem, you add alcohol which makes them feel popular and fun…and you have just created a drunk. The drinking crowd is exactly where I felt at home…growing up with a drunk dad and an uncle who nearly killed himself from booze didn’t seem to sink into my head that I was heading straight down that path.
I was fortunate to have my mom and step dad who saw what was happening and nipped it in the bud. I still didn’t completely stop drinking until I was 20, and only because I ended up marrying a drunk and one of us had to stay sober or we were both going to end up dead or in jail.
You are talking about building a tolerance to booze before they get to college and start binge drinking. No. They need not be binge drinking anyway. If you think that these kids have the ability to make good decisions on booze, I am afraid for your kid. Most of us know, once you get a few in you, the ability to reason goes right out the door.
This is my issue with booze vs smoking. At least smoking doesn’t take away someone’s ability to keep their head, and you sure as heck aren’t going to OD on it and die. Sure Gram’s sister is dying after 40 years of smoking kidney failure I’m not so sure of, but docs will say smoking causes EVERYTHING anymore, nevermind the millions of other things that could likely have also contributed…but 56 is far more an apt age to die than 18.
“You are talking about building a tolerance to booze before they get to college and start binge drinking. ”
I didn’t say or imply any such thing. I just question how another “just say no” program is going to make one bit of difference to young adults who have heard “just say no” since they were little kids.
“When I was in treatment at 15, it was kids like me, who had the parents who thought that ‘as long as they only do it in front of me”.
See, I didn’t say that either. To casually allow a 15 year old to drink in front of you would be terribly irresponsible. But it is just as irresponsible to send young people into an environment they have utterly no experience in.
Last I checked college “kids” are adults they can enter contracts, buy guns, lose a limb for their country, have families but somehow are too immature to have a beer? Somewhere in the country theirs a wheelchair bound gulf war vet who cant go to a bar and have a beer cause he isn’t mature enough, which is the kind of thinking that breeds a contempt for authority causes most young people to ignore the legal drinking age, most young people see thru that type of backwardsass thinking
TomPaine
Posted August 31, 2009 at 6:47 pm | Permalink
Last I checked college “kids” are adults they can enter contracts, buy guns, lose a limb for their country, have families but somehow are too immature to have a beer? Somewhere in the country theirs a wheelchair bound gulf war vet who cant go to a bar and have a beer cause he isn’t mature enough, which is the kind of thinking that breeds a contempt for authority causes most young people to ignore the legal drinking age, most young people see thru that type of backwardsass thinking
——————-
Maturity and having fully developed anatomy are two different things.
Some people never mature, they call them Libs.
(chortles)
alcohol classes.. how rediculas… assinine… Did I spell that Korectly.??
Paid for by tax money???
Underage drinking is an issue for parents to deal with..
How about Over-age drinking….Is that KU’s duty as well??
Why are 18 year olds able to be drafted and fight and die for our country., be convicted of Captital Murder and be put to death.. but they cant even dring a freaking beer…
K WHo cant even field a football team..We dont need their social comments…
The nanny state is just getting started. I expect to see much much more from the Obama people.
Obama thinks it’s a sin all the food that gets wasted on cruise ships.
Waiting for a new tax on that, or perhaps mandatory training of vacationers prior to embarking.
Yah cuz football is the most important thing in college. Eyeroll.
Booze shouldn’t be the environment parents are sending their kids into. I’m sick to death of these kids using college as a big party venue.
Most colleges say no. This is why. Perhaps we should start controlling college kids the way they do in the military.
Political_mama
Posted August 31, 2009 at 10:03 pm | Permalink
Most colleges say no. This is why. Perhaps we should start controlling college kids the way they do in the military.
———————–
Mandatory drug & alcohol testing?
Maybe the kids should all be raised in Socially Secure Villages, where senior citizens would be kept. The old could look after the young, and vice versa.
“JimJohnson” suggests –
“Socially Secure Villages”
Great idea!
That’s what we’ll call all those CONcentration Death camps CONs think we’re building!
You’re a marketing genius, “JimJohnson.”
One of the reasons kids get drunk, use drugs and have sex, often simultaneously, are all those authority figures who have done their damnedest to eradicate anything that might possibly be fun. You know who they are.
When I was in school, they showed us films about how marijuana turns its users into murderers and rapists and heroin addicts. Then we met people who toked, and they weren’t murderers or rapists or heroin addicts. So we toked, and didn’t feel the urge to go kill our mothers or rape our fathers or stick needles in our arms, and it made all that propagandizing worthless. Same story on alcohol and interracial dating and dancing and sex. We discovered that those authority figures were lying to us on one issue and it made sense that they were lying about them all. And mostly they were.
Of course now, if we tell them the truth they won’t believe it, because they’ve been lied to enough already and they know it. It will take generations to get past all the propaganda of the past and teach our kids something resembling the facts. We ought to start soon.
Tom,
“Last I checked college “kids” are adults they can enter contracts, buy guns, lose a limb for their country, have families but somehow are too immature to have a beer?”
As it was explained to me by a retired drill sergeant, the military wants ‘em young, before they actually come to grips with death, and think it can’t happen to them. That’s exactly when they shouldn’t be drinking.