Last year, Pennsylvania ran up a budget shortfall of over $1 billion. Its state government was forced to raise taxes to unprecedented levels and to slash important social programs across the board. A couple of weeks ago, it decided not to renew Smokey Joe's liquor licence. This, after it spent thousands of dollars for Liquor Control Board officers to raid Smoke's and several other campus-area bars over a period of more than a year. Clearly the good civil servants of the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have their priorities straight. Sooner than give up a valiant and noble crusade to rid the state of 20-year-old drinkers, Gov. Robert Casey and his fellow morality makers in the statehouse cut state funding where it isn't really needed -- like aid to higher education and aid to the state's biggest city. Someone needs to give the good governor a good slap upside the head. · When the federal government twisted the states' arms to increase the drinking age to 21, the rationale was that the number of driving fatalities related to alcohol would drop. It was not, they stressed, a moral issue. It was instead a practical one -- take drinks out of the hands of a section of the population, and they will not be able to drink and drive. Forget that this rationale is similar to arguing that we should not allow people to buy baseball bats because they could be used to beat people over the head. Forget that the policy punishes people who use alcohol responsibly. Forget that tough-as-nails laws against drunk driving have a similar effect in a more equitable fashion -- the federal government threatened to take away highway funds if the states failed to fall into line. But the new campaign by the LCB against campus-area bars, which is becoming increasingly vindictive, flies in the face of the whole logic used to support the 21 drinking age. The net result of closing bars around a university, where most students live on campus, will literally "drive" students off campus to find bars. It is naive to think that students will not drink. It is dangerous to foster an atmosphere where students will be more likely to drink and drive. What the state did by passing strict underage drinking laws in 1988 was not to help the fight against drunk driving. Instead, the laws are more like moral dictums passed down by the "knowers of right" in Harrisburg who feel a need to protect citizens from themselves. As a nation built by Puritans and a state built by Quakers, there has always been something holier-than-thou in the way the U.S., and Pennsylvania in particular, have dealt with vices. Things that often provide an amount of corporeal pleasure -- alcohol and sex, to name the biggies -- are for some reason looked upon as evil or dirty. Our false moral rectitude provides our Western European counterparts with a little chuckle. Americans, they say, hate to have fun. Europeans say we are embarassed by our desires and try to hide them. Whether you agree or not, it is clearly not the role of the government to decide what is morally right. And behind these philosophical arguments stand the practical ones. The strict enforcement of underage drinking laws is forcing students further off campus, where they are more susceptible to crime and more prone to drink and drive. If they chose not to drive to find alcohol, students will turn to the hard stuff in their rooms before they go out on campus -- a practice that is both unhealthy and unsafe. It is clear, however, that no matter how loud we yell and scream, the legislators will not listen to our mostly-out-of-state-non-voting voices. The University has a responsibility to mitigate the repercussions of these laws. Non-alcoholic alternative events, like those sponsored by the Social Planning and Events Committee, are one answer, but alcohol will still be consumed even as these events grow in popularity. And there is no reason why alcohol, when used responsibly, should not be part of a healthy campus social scene. Drinking can be fun, and should not therefore be seen as something evil and dirty. Rutgers University has realized this fact and recently instituted a policy that allows students to drink -- indeed, it encourages students to drink out of kegs to avoid the hazards glass bottles present. Students who want to host campus parties must attend presentations on drinking responsibly and register their kegs with the school beforehand. According to the dean in charge of monitoring the new plan, "students will act responsibly and take responsibilty for others" who drink. The University and the state should follow the lead of our cousins across the Delaware. Peter Speigel is a senior History major from Phoenix, Arizona and managing editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. Laughter and Contempt appears alternate Wednesdays.
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