I’ve written before about regulation of drink specials in Whitewater, and there’s a video from Reason.tv that considers UW-Stout’s efforts to regulate excessive drinking. The University of Wisconsin-Stout’s Chancellor, Charles Sorenson, has made regulating drinking a top priority, and he’s won acclaim for his efforts. A closer look shows that regulation has simply driven the problem underground, revealing the limitations of regulation, and now leading to still more regulations.
A regulatory approach has the advantage of show, and after the problem is driven into private homes beyond regulatory reach, the subsequent advantage of allowing officials to say, we did everything we could, it’s out of our hands. That doesn’t mean that some officials won’t try to double-down on a regulatory bet, as Sorenson is trying — impose university punishments for off-campus conduct. That, despite prior efforts, Sorenson needs to take this extra step shows how unavailing the initial regulatory efforts in Menomonie (UW-Stout’s hometown) have been.
There’s nothing surprising about the failure of prior efforts at limiting — wait for it — drink specials. The Journal Sentinel has a story about Sorenson’s current campaign, and the story points out the failure of prior efforts in Madison:
An attempt by former UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley a decade ago to crack down on alcohol abuse at the state’s flagship school resulted in some clashes with critics and with mixed results on dangerous drinking. Limiting drink specials at area bars resulted in fewer tickets for students. But the revelry at house parties and in dorms continued. UW-Madison topped the Princeton Review’s list of top party schools in 2005. This year, the school was No. 8 in the ranking.
First to eighth, out of all America – a problem unsolved.
See, Stout Chancellor Defends University’s Crackdown on Boozing.
If the goal is truly to reduce a problem, the likelihood of monitoring and limiting the problem is greater in a commercial setting of taverns than one of private homes. (When only some tavern owners support regulation, while others oppose, one can guess that there’s more than controlling drinking at work. It’s predictable that some businesses would benefit commercially through using concerns about public health as a limit on others’ competitive advantage in the marketplace.)
For those who’ve wondered, I’m not much of a drinker, by any standard. I don’t think there’s anything glamorous or enjoyable about over-drinking, and I drink rarely. I don’t write about the issue because I have a taste for alcohol, but because I have a distaste for ineffective, often counter-productive, regulations.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qQzYUZ_MNU
Today, we all take the drinking age for granted, but should we? In fact, the US is one of only four countries in the world with a drinking age as high as 21—the other three are Indonesia, Mongolia and Palau.
Is the policy working to reduce health and safety issues related to youthful alchohol abuse? Is enforcing the drinking age the best use of scarce public resources? What are the unintended consequences of alcohol prohibition for 18-20 year olds?
Organizations such as Mother Against Drunk Driving (MADD) argue that the drinking age is an effective policy and that the answer to ongoing alcohol related problems for 18-20 year olds is more education and better enforcement.
John McCardell, president of Choose Responsibility, and 135 university presidents and chancellors across the country believe it’s time to take a fresh look at the drinking age. The former president of Middlebury College and the new head of Sewanee/University of the South, McCardell says our current system encourages unsupervised binge drinking.
Reason.tv went to the University of Wisconsin-Stout in Menomonie, Wisconsin to get a first-hand look at the war on underage drinking.
Produced and hosted by Paul Feine; shot and edited by Alex Manning.