Underage drinking is unrelated to moral standards, despite what you might have read in a recent Odyssey article.
The writer of the article attacked underage drinking and deemed it her “personal pet peeve.” Her choice to stray from drinking while in college is a valid and notable effort, but there is no formula for how much drinking is acceptable for college students.
I’m not going to condone underage drinking. It can be dangerous and is, at its core, illegal.
I’m the first person to counter the age-old argument of “if I can serve my country, I should be able to drink a beer with my pals” with the concept that 21 should be the base age for voting, drinking and the draft. As with drinking, 18-year-old high school students living with their parents just don’t yet know enough about the real world to add informed input to elections, but that’s an argument for a different day.
My biggest issue with the Odyssey article is that the writer seems to link moral standards to law.
“If abiding by your country’s law isn’t enough to keep your moral standards in check and motivate you to make intelligent choices, perhaps you should consider reevaluating how you base your judgment for decision making.”
First of all, law cannot be a basis for “keeping your moral standards in check.” We once had laws that prevented women and minorities from voting and counted some human beings as three-fifths of a person.
Second, it’s not fair to say students who engage in the party life are highlighting “your lack of self-respect and ignorance” and throwing “away their potential as a result of adhering to their idea of ‘fun’ rather than valuing the respectable choice.”
College is that in-between time: you’re an adult, but not quite. It’s entirely unfair to judge those who drink underage as throwing their lives away when their lives have barely just begun. The majority of college students do not drop out of school as a result of drinking or partying — a select few might, but it’s not as common as the writer makes it seem.
According to The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 80 percent of college students drink alcohol and about half reported binge drinking within the last two weeks. Those numbers are from a 2012 study, so they’re a little dated, but still relevant.
Yes, drinking does correlate with higher injury and assault rates, but it’s a culture now. It’s a much bigger picture issue. Encouraging your college-aged friends to practice sobriety for their four years of higher education is like encouraging them to practice abstinence. It’s not going to work.
Instead, help your friends enjoy their time in college as responsibly as possible, and teach them how to be good and moral people while sober so that those qualities will carry over when drinking too.
It’s fair to worry about friends who drink too much, and it’s okay to blame alcohol for bad decisions when blame is due, but it’s not fair to attack 80 percent of college students for partaking in part of the college culture that seems integral to their higher education experience.
