"Instead of pretending that prohibition on college campuses is realistic, we should be investing in helping those young people learn to make healthy and responsible choices."

October 12, 2000 7:57 AM

"Instead of pretending that prohibition on college campuses is realistic, we should be investing in helping those young people learn to make healthy and responsible choices." -- August A. Busch III, chairman, Anheuser-Busch
posted by harmful (21 comments total)

Such as: "if you're having an illegal kegger, don't buy Bud."

I mean, he's right. But from the mouth of someone who peddles a beer containing rice, you have to wonder.
posted by holgate at 8:08 AM on October 12, 2000

Crocodile tears.

Considering how stinking expensive college tuition is, how about, I dunno, concentrating on getting your degree and not getting sh*tfaced?

AB and co is looking for mo money, mo money. Pure and simple.

posted by ethmar at 8:20 AM on October 12, 2000

Some of us were able to concentrate on getting our degree and getting 'faced, thank you.

But not on Bud. Egad, no.

And this isn't a big problem in Europe, where drinking is accepted and binge-drinking is dismissed as juvenille. If college students were more like Europeans, they'd be giving themselves lung cancer instead of liver damage.
posted by snarkout at 8:29 AM on October 12, 2000

Considering how stinking expensive college tuition is, how about, I dunno, concentrating on getting your degree and not getting sh*tfaced?

I disagree, because getting pissed -- primarily in the subsidised college-run bar -- is as much part of the college experience here as writing essays. And seeing as British undergraduate education pretty much outstrips that in the US, I don't think we've suffered too badly.

Now, if American college students spent less time getting stoned (mainly because it's easier to get weed than into downtown bars), you might see things pick up...
posted by holgate at 8:30 AM on October 12, 2000

I'm surprised that nobody hit me with the even more obvious counterpoint: Many college students are there one someone else's dime (or pence, in Holgate's case), and therefore don't give a rip about the cost angle.

I paid my own way when I did go, so I'm a tad more sensitive to the dollars and cents aspect of going to school.
posted by ethmar at 8:41 AM on October 12, 2000

True, ethmar. We're lucky not to have to worry so much about tuition here, and scrape by on loans to pay the bills. But the college bar's such an important point of contact for students, and tends to reduce the number of unsavory incidents which come from being in town bars on a weekend...

(I worked every Friday night in my college bar for a couple of years. If anything puts you off binge drinking, that will.)
posted by holgate at 9:07 AM on October 12, 2000

"... we should be investing in helping those young people learn to make healthy and responsible choices."

Hmmm... Bud? Or Budlite? Budlite seems to be the healthier of the two...

More advertising for Budlite!!!
posted by da5id at 10:39 AM on October 12, 2000

More pot and things will definately pick up, how many hollering frat boys do you really need?

See, we don't have frat boys, because we get the puking over and done with by the age of 18. (Unless you play rugby, that is.) But we also don't have the dull stoner types which seemed to pollute Athens, Ga. when I stayed there. Anyone who skins up every day, before lunchtime, while watching daytime TV, really has problems.
posted by holgate at 10:40 AM on October 12, 2000

i've been to keggers on campus before. i've had parties in my dorm room (when i lived on campus.) it's not as if having a "dry campus" really happens.

and i get stoned (occasionally) and shitfaced (pretty regularly) and i still have a 3.0+ gpa. it's not the drinking that gets people, it's the not going to class and doing homework.

last summer i had to have four jobs (four!) in order to make sure i had enough money (after my scholarship and loans) to survive during school (when i quit three of them). so believe me, i understand just how much it costs to go to school.

posted by sugarfish at 10:51 AM on October 12, 2000

Isn't this story kind of like the president of Nambla suggesting we change the way our 1st graders deal with strangers?
posted by Doug at 10:54 AM on October 12, 2000

But, let's remember, if college students would drink *responsibly* (or, Americans in general), there wouldn't be such a need for dry campuses. More and more students are going to the hospitals for alcohol poisoning, and more and more aren't coming back alive. I agree with AB; teach how to drink responsibly.
posted by gramcracker at 1:56 PM on October 12, 2000

>there wouldn't be such a need for dry campuses

Mmmm, I don't totally agree with that. College students have parents, parents don't like to think that Junior is going to State U only to come back in a box, therefore dry campus restrictions get enacted.

RE: "getting pissed -- primarily in the subsidised college-run bar -- is as much part of the college experience here as writing essays", bars that are NOT ordinarily associated with the college crowd run the risk of losing their liquor license when they serve minors. How embarrassing would it be for say, Michigan State to be implicated in a drunk driving accident because minors were served in a campus bar?

(equally as embarrassing as students getting ripped in their dorm and getting in a drunk driving accident, I suppose, which is another can of worms)
posted by ethmar at 2:16 PM on October 12, 2000

I think by and large if Americans stopped babying their young until middle-adulthood, everyone would be much better off. Responsible drinking. Responsible driving. Responsible choices.


posted by amanda at 4:31 PM on October 12, 2000

>I think by and large if Americans stopped babying their young until middle-adulthood, everyone would be much better off.

I can't go for that. That would mess up my lucrative frivolous lawsuit business. :-)
posted by ethmar at 4:36 PM on October 12, 2000

ethmar: two big differences between the UK and US --

1) The legal drinking age is 18. Which means that college students are by definition over-age.

2) Most students don't own cars, and those that do can rely upon public transport when they go out for a drink. (There's a much greater social stigma attached to drink-driving here, mainly because there's no excuse to do so.)

So yeah, it'd be unworkable in the US right now. The irony being that the "concerned parents" most likely partook in all sorts of vices during their late teenage years in the 60s and 70s. For instance, the two presidential candidates...
posted by holgate at 5:28 PM on October 12, 2000

Busch is right. Bone dry campuses are a myth. I attend a "dry" campus. If college students want to drink, they'll drink. If they want to party, they'll party. There are plenty of guys who go to college simply to drink. Lowering the age to 18 will mean that I can go to a party without worrying about a summons, and if we take the smart route and educate people, there'll be less drinking and driving and more responsible drinkers. There will always be exceptions to every rule, but we can always strive to lessen the amount of morons out there.Take MetaFilter for example. It isn't absolutely huge, like something like Slashdot, but it runs responsibly for the amount of members it has. You don't need a special account to post a link or karma points to make comments, yet people still restrict themselves to sounding as intelligent as possible and making interesting observations.
posted by tomorama at 6:30 PM on October 12, 2000

How idiotic is it that college students in America can be wise enough to elect a president, but can't handle the decision to have a drink?

Mind you, with the state of politics in this country...
posted by mzanatta at 8:56 PM on October 12, 2000

How idiotic is it that college students in America can be wise enough to elect a president, but can't handle the decision to have a drink?

If 18 year olds voted, the drinking age and the age of consent would both be 14.
posted by mikewas at 9:12 PM on October 12, 2000

>Take MetaFilter for example.

I'm with you, tomorama. I'm pleased to see that MetaFilter does not need to offer "bozo filters" and other such nonsense to keep the conversation civil.

>people still restrict themselves

True, but I believe that this is ingrained in the MeFi culture. If everyone in society "restricted themselves" to being intelligent-sounding and most of all civil, then what a different world this would be indeed.
posted by ethmar at 6:23 AM on October 13, 2000

> How idiotic is it that college students in America ...

And at 18 you can get drafted and go to war and kill people, but not drink a beer legally. Absurd.
posted by megnut at 10:03 AM on October 13, 2000

megnut: it was even more absurd when you could get drafted to go get killed in southeast asia, but you couldn't vote for leaders who would stop the madness...

Once someone is legally an adult, the law should let go of them. As it is, the 18-you're-an-adult thing is a bit of a joke. 21 is real adulthood in the USA, and that's absurdly late.

Besides, I think much of the college drinking problem in the USA can safely be blamed on the ban on drinking until age 21. This creates a pressure to drink as a badge of adulthood that simply wouldn't be present if alcoholic beverages were available as a normal part of life. Even lowering the age to 18 would be better; if there's going to be an artificially imposed "you can drink now - go wild" moment, better it should happen when people are closer to home and more likely to be around people who can take care of them.

-Mars
posted by Mars Saxman at 4:15 PM on October 13, 2000